


Harvest Home

by ProfessorFlimflam



Series: Lovers Lane [1]
Category: Holby City
Genre: Ableism, Allotment AU, Background Raf and Fletch, Everyone gets the therapy they need, F/F, Flaf, Gardens & Gardening, Holby husbands, M/M, Potato faced men, Slow Burn, Twat Factor, now with added angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-03
Updated: 2018-02-24
Packaged: 2019-02-27 18:06:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 50,291
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13253727
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ProfessorFlimflam/pseuds/ProfessorFlimflam
Summary: Serena had forgotten all about the allotment she had applied for - it had literally been years ago. But now that her name has come to the top of the list, she might as well give it a go.It isn’t quite the idyllic oasis she’d hoped for, and it’s hard work - good job Jason and his friends are there to help. Her dream plot would be plot number thirteen, but it’s already taken by a mysterious gardener who hardly ever comes out of their shed. Who could it be?Serena puts two and two together and comes up with thirteen...





	1. A Seed Is Sown

**Author's Note:**

> Put on your wellies and gardening gloves for a slow burn over the course of sixteen chapters and one growing season! 
> 
> I’m aiming to water it twice a week.
> 
>  
> 
> For readers not familiar with the UK system of allotments, they are plots of land set aside, usually by local councils, for individuals to rent (at a low price - I used to pay £21 a year for mine) for growing fruit and vegetables. They were hugely important during the Second World War when the UK was largely blockaded, and food imports were badly affected. Outside the UK, you might know them as community or victory gardens.
> 
> They’re genuine community spaces, and have a whole culture and lore of their own. Many allotment associations have stringent by-laws about what you can and can’t do there (e.g., keeping livestock, bonfires at certain times of the year, what you can and can’t store in your shed, etc).
> 
> They’ve had a massive resurgence in popularity in recent years, and Serena’s seven year wait is no exaggeration.

“No good news ever came out of a brown envelope.”

That had been Serena’s motto ever since her divorce from her philandering, booze addled husband Edward Campbell, and she had stuck firmly to this belief over the ensuing years. Conveniently ignoring the year she had received a substantial tax rebate courtesy of a brown envelope from HMRC, she held that call it brown, buff or manila, any envelope other than pristine white could only be the harbinger of trouble or nuisance.

So it was that on a miserable wet Wednesday morning in January, when her nephew picked up the post from the doormat and handed it to her, she sorted swiftly through the pile and sniffed dismissively, handing an A5 brown envelope back to him, holding it gingerly by the corner as though it were soiled, and said, “Oh, throw it away Jason, you know my feelings about brown envelopes.”

  
Jason took the offending article and scanned it, then looked back up at her, scandalised by her cavalier attitude.  
“Auntie Serena, it’s from Holby City Council. It might be important!”

  
She scowled at the letter in his hand. “What can they have to say to me that I don’t already know? I’ve paid my council tax, I’ve got a residents’ parking permit, and I know what day the bins go out, thank you very much. Anything else is surplus to requirements. Just bin it.” She waved a hand at the wicker bin next to the front door, already close to overflowing with unsolicited leaflets and letters ready to put out with the recycling.

  
Jason peered closely at the envelope, hunting for clues.  
“It looks very official. I don’t think you should throw it away without looking at it. Are you worried it might be another speeding fine?”

  
“No I am not! Anyway, they come from the DVLA, not the council. It’s more likely to be a parking fine. Oh, I suppose you’re right - I'd better not miss another one: they were so unsympathetic last time. Let’s have it.”

  
He passed it over, a frown on his face.  
“You know, if you just let the house a bit earlier and stuck to the speed limit there might be parking spaces left at the hospital and you wouldn’t have to park illegally. You should try and be more organised, Auntie Serena. I could make a schedule for you if you like?”

  
She smiled at him in spite of herself. “That’s very kind of you, Jason. I don’t think I’d be very good at sticking to it though, do you?”

He considered her gravely, head slightly to one side. “No, I don't think you would. We could start small though, and put in more detail later once you’ve got into better habits? I’ll see what I can do.”

  
Serena felt a burst of affection breaking through her exasperation. She doubted that he could teach her much about time management that her MBA from Harvard hadn’t touched upon, but she loved that he wanted to try, and reconciled herself to what was already an inevitable campaign of improvement. She recognised the look on Jason’s face, and knew that he had made up his mind, and wouldn’t change it.

Picking up the paper knife, she turned her attention back to the envelope. She slit it along the flap and drew out a single sheet of paper, a grainy photocopy of a standard letter from the Council with her name and a few details scribbled in by hand.

“What on _earth_ …”

Jason had been heading off to his room to start on Serena’s new schedule, but stuck his head back round the door at her exclamation.  
“What is it? _Is_ it another parking ticket?”

She looked up at him, the letter still in her hand.  
“No, it’s - well, it’s very odd, I don’t really understand. Listen:

“ _Dear Mrs Cambell_ (that’s Ms, thank you, and Campbell spelled wrongly, I note), _thank you for your application for an allotment. I am pleased to inform you that plot no. 17 has become available at the Lovers Lane site (map enclosed). Details of the Holby Allotment Society and shop can be found overleaf. Inspections will be carried out._.. blah, blah, blah.” She looked up at Jason in confusion. “Why on earth have I been given an allotment? Did you apply for this, Jason? You really should have asked me first.”

“It’s nothing to do with me - and anyway, even if I had done, the waiting list is really long: Celia’s Mum has been waiting for years to get an allotment. She applied seven years ago and reminds them every year, and they just tell her she’s a little bit nearer the top of the list. So even if I _had_ applied, I wouldn’t expect to get one until at least 2024. You must have applied for it a long time ago and forgotten about it.”

Serena shook her head stubbornly. “Of course I didn’t apply for an allotment. It’s a clerical error, it must be. I’ve got a big enough garden already, I barely have time for that, let alone coming over all Felicity Kendal at the weekends. And besides, seven years ago I wasn’t even -” She suddenly broke off. “Oh.”

  
Jason looked at her curiously. “What? What were you doing seven years ago?”

  
“I was still with Edward - just about. Things weren’t right, and I thought we should spend more time together outside the workplace. I tried to get him interested in all sorts of things - going to museums and galleries, which Elinor hated, I joined us up to a walking group that he never came along to, I tried taking him to my book group but he didn’t even bother reading the book… this was just another effort to get us spending time together as a family - well, that was all a waste of time as it turned out.”

  
She turned the letter over and glanced at the map. “Oh, is that where Lovers Lane is? I hadn't realised it was so near here. Oh well, so much for what might have been. I certainly haven’t got time to keep an allotment now - as you’ve so kindly pointed out, I can barely manage what little time I have as it is.” She dropped the letter into the recycling basket and brushed her hands together lightly, as though brushing the soil of the allotment away. “Now, I’d better get a move on or I’ll be late for work. I’ll see you later - enjoy your day off.”

She picked up her car keys from the bowl on the side table and banged the door behind her. Jason followed her to the door, then picked the letter out of the basket. He read it twice, turning it over to study the map. He smoothed the letter out and placed it carefully on the side table, regarding it thoughtfully. A moment later, he picked it up again and took it through to his room, and opened a new document on his computer.

 _File_  
_Save As_  
“ _Schedule - Auntie Serena.docx_ ”

He began to type.

***

Some fourteen hours later, Jason heard the door close rather more quietly than it had done that morning. From the sofa in the living room where he was watching television, he registered the distinctive click of the Yale lock settling, and the slide-click of the latch as Serena pushed it up. Serena’s coat rustled as she hung it up, and Jason counted her steps across the hallway - then a pause.

“Oh, for goodness’ sake. Jason, I thought I'd thrown this away!”

She came into the living room waving the letter about the allotment.

“You did, but I got it out because I thought it ought to be shredded - it’s got your name and address on. You don’t want to leak any more personal data, do you? And anyway, you ought to reply to the council if you’re not going to take the allotment. That's probably why the waiting list is so long, because people don’t communicate effectively.”

  
Serena sighed - she knew he was right on both counts, and although she didn’t appreciate the reminder of the awful day she had left her laptop in her car, only to have it stolen and hacked, with humiliating consequences which included her suspension from work for a number of weeks. And the administrator in her, never too far from the surface, had to agree about sending a rejection note, too.

“I suppose you're right. I haven't got the energy to do it tonight, though. Will it bother you if I leave it there to remind me to do it?”

***

The letter was still there the next evening, but somehow she couldn't summon up the will power to write the brief note. Perhaps she would get round to it on her next day off. For the time being though, it sat by the front door, until she barely registered its presence. Jason took to moving it to ever more prominent positions, weighting it down with her keys in an attempt to get her to do something with it. But when Serena’s day off came around, she went to the little table in the hallway to make sure she included the relevant reference number in her note to the council, and found that the letter had disappeared. She supposed that Jason had got tired of waiting for her to write and had done it himself. She would just check with him when he got back from his walk to make sure that she could forget about it with a clear conscience.

***

Half a mile away, Jason stood at the gate of the Lovers Lane allotments, clutching the letter, and wishing he hadn’t worn his favourite pair of trainers. He tried the gate, finding it locked. With a sigh, he put a foot on the step and swung his leg over the stile, and surveyed the allotments around him. Most of them looked pretty well tended, and a few of them still had leafy green vegetables growing. He thought he could recognise kale and cabbages, but he wasn’t too sure about some of the other things. Other plots were a bit scruffier, and there were one or two which were so overgrown that he couldn’t tell where the edges were.

He looked at the letter again and started looking for plot number seventeen.


	2. The Plot Thickens

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jason points out the benefits of keeping an allotment - but Serena knows she can’t spare the time to do it properly. But Jason is a master of time management, and he has a plan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A couple of short chapters while we decide whether or not to keep the allotment, but we’re really going to get stuck in soon!

By the time Jason returned, Serena had forgotten about the letter. She was sitting at the kitchen table making notes on a journal article while she sipped her coffee, when she heard him coming in by the back door, unusually for him. There was a lot of scuffling about before he emerged from the utility room, his face flushed with the cold air.

“You’ve had a nice long walk - you’ve been gone ages!” Serena said. “Where did you go? Anywhere nice?”

“Oh, just round and about,” he replied vaguely. “Can I put some washing on, please? My trousers have got a bit muddy.”

“Ah, so that’s why you came in the back door - thank you, Jason, that’s very considerate of you. Yes, of course you can. You know you can wash your trainers too if they’re mucky? Just knock off the worst of it outside, then put them in the pillowcase next to the washing machine so they don’t damage anything else before you put them in the wash.”

Jason looked at her sceptically, but when he came back from his bedroom in clean trousers, he had obviously done a quick check on the internet, and she heard him banging his trainers together over the flower bed by the back door. She had initially been offended by his habit of checking her every utterance against Google, but she recognised his need to be certain about new things now. She had talked to him about how trustworthy internet sources might or might not be, and had been pleased to discover that he was really pretty savvy online. Although she couldn’t help being slightly miffed by his need to fact check her, she secretly admired his research instincts.

He came back into the kitchen and made a cup of tea for himself, then took it through to his bedroom without a word. It was evident that he had something on his mind, and Serena knew from hard experience that it would be better by far to let him mull it over in his own time and tell her about it when he was good and ready. There had been several nasty scenes where she had tried to coax things out of him before he was ready to discuss them, and she understood now that he needed to put things in an order that made sense to him before he was ready to present them to the world at large.

 

Giving up on her article, she tidied the kitchen a little and peered into the utility room. As far as she could see, Jason had just put his trousers and trainers in the washing machine on their own. She would have to remind him about always putting on a full load - he had a terrible habit of just chucking in the one item he particularly wanted clean. When challenged, he brought up his concerns about hygiene - he wasn’t really convinced that putting lots of dirty clothes in together didn’t just transfer the dirt from one thing to another. Perhaps it wasn’t worth the argument today, when he had put in things that were so mucky, judging by the mess by the back door. Where _had_ he been to get so muddy?

 

She didn't have very long to wait to find out. Ten minutes later, Jason came to find her, a sheaf of papers fresh from the printer in his hand. 

“Auntie Serena, I’m going to buy some wellies today. I didn’t like getting my shoes and trousers dirty, and I think mud is an inevitable consequence of gardening.”

Serena didn’t know what she had been expecting, but it wasn’t wellies.

“Gardening? Are you thinking of taking it up as a hobby? Perhaps I can spare you a little patch at the back of the garden next to the compost bins, how would that be?”

He shook his head. “Not your garden, Auntie Serena - the allotment. I’ve been to Lovers Lane to look at it, and I think we should accept it. It’s very nice down there, although it's a bit muddy at the moment. But I think we’ll be all right if we have our wellies.” He looked at her expectantly.

 “The allotment? Oh, Jason, I thought we’d agreed about this - I haven’t got time to look after an allotment. I told you, I’d forgotten all about it - it was something I thought I might do seven or eight years ago, but now… I couldn’t possibly find the time to have an allotment now. You know how busy I am - and you’ve been the first to point out that I’m not very good at managing my time. No, I think we’d better send that note to the council today - I thought you’d done it already, to be honest. I noticed the letter had gone and I thought you’d got fed up waiting for me to do it.”

“I did.” Jason said baldly. “I was going to shred it for confidentiality, but I thought I’d better research allotment keeping first just in case, and I’ve found that there are lots of benefits.” He shuffled through his stack of papers and drew out a bullet pointed list.

  * 30 minutes of activity on your allotment can burn up to 150 calories
  * an allotment can provide much of the produce for your dining table
  * organic food at a fraction of the supermarket cost
  * spending as little as 15 minutes in the sunshine can boost vitamin D
  * modern allotment are very sociable places which is good for mental health and can help delay the onset of dementia
  * spending half and hour on an allotment can lead to a 22% drop in the stress hormone cortisol
  * provides a green corridor for wildlife, especially insects and bees
  * satisfaction and reward of producing your own food



 

Serena sighed. “That's all very well Jason - I don't deny that there are plenty of good reasons to have an allotment, and it does sound lovely - really, it does. But I just haven’t got time for it! You’re talking about half an hour a day - well, I can’t go every day, you know that. And when I’m not at work I’m shopping, cooking, cleaning…”

Jason calmly produced his next document: what looked horribly like one of his own weekly schedules, but with the dread words _Auntie Serena: current_ across the top.

“This is a time and motion study I’ve been carrying out this week. The grey squares are when you were at work, and there’s not much you can do about that. Blue is travel time, pink is shopping, orange is cooking and yellow is cleaning, washing and other household activities. Lilac is time you spent doing workplace things at home, like reading journals, writing reports and rehearsing the little speeches you like to give.”

“I do not give _little speeches_ , thank you very much! I just like to have an idea of how I’m gong to phrase certain things. Really, Jason, I had no idea you’d been spying on me. I'm not sure I like it very much.”

Unphased, her met her stern glare with a placid smile. “I haven’t been spying on you: just observing. You’ve got as of much a routine as I have, you know - you just don’t usually write it down.”

“Well, I suppose I tend to do the same things at around the same time - most people do. What are the red bits? There an awful lot of them.”

His gaze slid away from hers. “I made a note every time I saw you with a glass of wine in your hand. I thought those times should be marked in red.”

Serena paled. “Really? Each little red square is a glass of wine?”

“Oh, no. It’s just when you had a glass in your hand. Most of those squares represent at least two glasses - some of them are for three or four glasses.”

She slumped back against the counter, a hand toying with her pendant. “Goodness. That’s more than I would have thought. I'm sure you must have miscounted - I expect it was one glass I drank slowly most of the time, and -”

“Oh, I don’t think so,” he interrupted. “I looked at the recycling bin on Monday and there eight wine bottles in there. That equates to at least six small glasses - more like seven - a day - and that doesn’t include what you have at Albies.” There was no judgement in his voice, which somehow made it worse. _Just the facts, ma’am_ , Serena thought. It did sound quite bad when you looked at it like that - and she knew she hadn’t drunk at home every night that week, so it was rather more than six small glasses per night. And he was quite right: on the other evenings, she’d been at Albies.

“I see. That’s… well, that’s quite illuminating, thank you. What are the stripey bits?”

“Those are where you multi-tasked. Look, here, you were having a glass of wine while you were cooking -”

“Well, that explains it - I expect I was putting a glass in the cooking!”

“While you were cooking fish pie. And here, you were shopping and doing one of your speeches. I remember that because lots of people were looking at you in Waitrose. You called the deli assistant Henrik and prodded him in the chest with a chorizo. How did that speech go? Did Mr Hanssen give you the extra funding allocation?”

“No, he didn’t. Oh dear, were people really looking? Perhaps I’d better keep that sort of preparation at home.”

“You ought to keep it at _work_ , Auntie Serena. When you’re at work, you should be at work, and when you’re at home, you should be at home. That’s what they call work-life balance, and I don’t think you’re doing it very well.”

Looking at the chart, Serena had to agree. “Well. You’re right, there’s a lot of lilac where I’m doing work at home. I’ll have a good long hard think about it and see if I can even things up a bit. Thank you for doing this Jason, it’s very… thought provoking. I’m sure I can make some efficiencies if I try!”

“Oh, you don’t need to do that,” he said brightly, a helpful expression on his face, “I’ve already done it for you - here.” He passed another sheet to her, similar to the last, but this time headed _Auntie Serena: week 1_.

 

She looked at it aghast. “There’s no red on this one…”

 


	3. Intensive Weeding

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In spite of Jason’s careful timetabling, Serena just can’t see them being able to manage the upkeep of an allotment. But Jason has anticipated her objections, and has a cunning plan to help persuade her.

Serena had promised Jason that she would look properly at his proposed schedule for her week. She saw that he had looked up her off duty for the following week and marked it in grey, but there the similarity to the previous week ended. As she had noted, there were no red squares - the colour that denoted her alcohol consumption - but neither was there any lilac at all: instead, he had used a lighter grey to show forty five minutes tacked onto the beginning or end of each shift, depending on its length and time of day, to enable her to carry out work-related tasks away from home. His copious notes on the other side of the printout explained that this was an interim measure until she was able to fit all her work activities into her normal working  day. She might choose to stay at the hospital, or to find a neutral space such as a café or a library, as long as it was a sway from home. She wasn’t sure that she would be able to give up her habit of reading the BMJ at the breakfast table, but she was prepared to give it a go, as he had put so much thought and care into revamping her schedule.

She was astonished to see how little time he had allowed for cooking and cleaning: again, the notes gave an explanation for this.

  * I think we should consider hiring a cleaner. Celia’s Mum gets someone to come in twice a week but I think we could manage with just one weekly visit as neither of us is very messy.
  * As we already have a schedule for evening meals, we can make extra and freeze it, so when you make cottage pie, you can make four and freeze three of them. You can also do this for fish pie, curry and spaghetti bolognese (but not the spaghetti - that won’t be very nice frozen).
  * In addition, I would like to learn to cook and then I can help with this. I don’t want to cook fish though. I would prefer you to do this as I don’t like the way it smells before you cook it.



She smiled. She still wasn't convinced that she could free up enough time to keep an allotment, but she had to admit that his suggestions were sensible ones. She had employed a cleaner to help out while her mother was ill, as there simply weren't enough hours in the day, and, she remembered sadly, there was often a big clean-up job to be done after Adrienne’s confused episodes, when she would sometimes sweep food off the table in her frustration. Although she had initially felt something of a failure for having to take someone on to help with household chores, she had come to appreciate it, and had liked and respected Sue, who had taken a great deal of pride in her work. She would see if Sue could fit her in - she would have her phone number somewhere.

She enjoyed cooking, but was frankly bored of cooking the same four or five dishes week in, week out, so perhaps this batch cooking would free up her time a bit. She might even find that cooking on the evenings when Jason didn’t need catering for became a pleasure again. She didn’t resent him and his need for predictability at all, but she was a good cook and missed being able to let her creative side loose. Perhaps if she was only cooking once or twice a week she might come to see it as a treat instead of the chore it had become.

The pink squares, representing shopping, were fewer in number, too, and comparing the two schedules she could see the sense in this: if they were batch cooking the regular meals as Jason had suggested, they ought to be able to cut down on shopping trips - and he had also stipulated that they (by which she was pretty sure he meant she) draw up a shopping list that would account for all the meals planned for that week and order online, so that extra trips would not be required. She did have a bad habit of popping out for one or two things that she’d forgotten earlier in the week, and she rarely stuck to buying just those one or two things once she was back in the supermarket. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been shopping for food without picking up a bottle or two of Shiraz.

 

Serena looked at the two plans again, one with a thick band of red sweeping across the evenings every day, and the other, totally devoid of red. She sighed. She had known that she drank more than the recommended amount, but it was quite a shock to see it laid out like this. Jason’s proposal seemed to require her to forego alcohol altogether, which frankly wasn’t an option - she had once gone sober for a month to raise money for charity, and by the end of the first week her colleagues had been offering her double if she would start drinking again, so grumpy and irritable had it made her. Nothing if not stubborn, she had stuck it out, but the idea of going teetotal held precious little appeal, and her first taste of Shiraz afterwards was little short of a religious experience. She could certainly do with cutting down, though, and as Jason seemed determined to overhaul every other aspect of her life, she might as well try now. She took one last look at the graphic representation of her old life, and resolutely put it to bottom of the pile of paper. She would start afresh tomorrow - but she would finish her one remaining open bottle first.

The new schedule - _Auntie Serena week 1_ \- may not have had any Shiraz red, but there was a new colour in abundance. On her days off, and dotted here and there around her shorter shifts, were splotches of green. Glancing down to the key that Jason had provided, she saw it confirmed. 

 

 _Green = Allotment_.

 

***

 

“I have to say a big thank you for drawing up a schedule for me, Jason. You've clearly put a great deal of thought into it.”

He beamed at her over his dinner plate. “Well, I did think about it _quite_ hard, but really it’s all done on quite basic principles. It’s all about being more efficient and working smarter, not harder. There’s a lot more we could do to streamline things, but I though we ought to start with the very basic things first.”

Reeling slightly at the thought that this might only be the beginning of a more radical set of changes, Serena set about managing his expectations straight away. 

“Well, let's see how we get on with this lot first, shall we? It feels like quite a lot of change to me. Though I must say, I like the idea of getting a cleaner in again. Did I tell you I used to have a cleaner when your grandmother was alive? I thought I’d give her a call tomorrow and see if she might be able to help us out again.”

She had hesitated a little before she mentioned Adrienne: she didn't really have a clear idea of what Jason knew about the circumstances of his mother’s birth and childhood, but she wanted him to know at least a little about his grandmother, whatever part she might have played in his life. With some consternation, she noticed a sadness fall over his expressive face. 

“I think it might be nice to meet someone who met my granny. My mum never talked about her - not about my real granny. I wish she’d been able to grow up with you, Auntie Serena, then we could all have been a family together.”

Dismayed, she patted his arm. “I would have liked that too, I think, Jason. I wish so much that I’d met her - and met you earlier, too. I’m glad we live together now, though. I think you would have liked each other, you and my mother. Both very honest and plain spoken - I think you would have appreciated her honesty.” _No matter how hard I found  it to cope with_ , she thought.

Jason looked at her carefully. “Would you mind if I talked about her sometimes, Auntie Serena? And about my mother? I know you get a bit upset sometimes when I mention either of them, and I don’t want to make you cry, but it’s quite hard sometimes not to be able to say how much I miss Mum.”

Serena blinked away the prickling sensation in her eyes, and smiled at him. “Of course it's alright. Tears aren’t always a bad thing you know - sometimes a good cry is just what you need, and it’s normal to feel sad about people we’ve lost. I don’t want you to think that you can’t talk to me - I’d love to know more about your Mum, too. You can always ask me, you know - I’ll tell you if it’s too difficult to talk about. Do you think that might work?”

He nodded happily. “Yes, I think that's a very sensible solution. You see, you're already thinking about more efficient communication.” She wasn’t sure that's _quite_ what she’d been doing, but she decided she’d take it.

“Thank you. Now, in the spirit of efficient communication, I think I'd better say right away that I just don’t think we can manage an allotment between us. I can see how much it means to you, but I’m sorry Jason, I just think it’s too much for two very busy people like us.”

She braced herself for his reaction, but was taken aback to find him nodding complacently.

“You’re quite right, it's far too much for you and me. That’s why I’ve asked Celia and her mum if they would like to come in with us. They’re quite happy for you and me to do all the planning, and they can go most days and do a bit of maintenance. Celia’s only at college two days a week now, and her mum is her main carer since she had the accident.” Jason fiddled with his cuff, not meeting Serena’s eye: although she knew now that Celia’s dreadful accident, when she had fallen from a tree and impaled herself on some railings in the park, had not been Jason’s fault, it was a difficult memory for both of them. She was horrified that she had thought him capable of hurting the young woman, and he had found the whole episode so upsetting that he found it very difficult to talk about it. Serena was quick to reassure him.

“What a good idea. I expect her mum’s desperate to get her hands dirty if she’s been waiting all that time for an allotment. What did they say? That might just work, if they can do a little each day…”

Equilibrium restore, he grinned at her. “Her mum said that if it was all right with you, she couldn't think of anything she’d rather do. But she did say that you should give her a phone call to talk about it before we decided anything. I’ve got it written down for you - here.” He passed her an envelope containing a brief note in an unfamiliar hand.

 

_Dear Dr Campbell,_

_Jason says he thinks that you might be willing to take on the allotment if you had some help, and I wondered if Celia and I might be able to come in with you? I don’t know if Jason has mentioned it but I have been on the waiting list for ever such a long time now - you must have been, too! - and have pretty much given up hope of getting my own plot. We wouldn’t step on your toes, but would be very happy to help if you would let us. I would love Celia to spend more time out of doors, and she and Jason have built up such a lovely friendship - I know that she misses him now that she doesn’t see him at college any more._

_Let me know what you think. My phone number is below and you can call me any time. Hope to speak soon,_

_Tanni (Celia’s mum)_

 

Serena turned the letter over in her hands a couple of times. She supposed that if keeping an allotment didn't work out for them - and she had every reason to suspect that it wouldn’t - she could always turn it over to Tanni with a clear conscience. She doubted that she would manage to keep her own schedule clear for very long, and Jason was so fastidious about cleanliness and order that she wasn’t convinced he would manage the realities of an allotment, but she hated to shoot him down when he was so enthusiastic - and there was a part of her that remembered her grandmother’s little market garden from childhood holidays in France with such nostalgia that she found herself caught up in his excitement.

“Okay, Jason, I’ll tell you what. We’ll try it for three months, and if we don’t make a good go of it, we’ll ask Tanni if she and Celia can manage it on their own. Otherwise, as you say, we really ought to let the council know to pass it on to the next people waiting for it. How does that sound?”

He considered it, and said, “I think we ought to try it for a whole year really - after all, I don’t think we'll have very much growing by March. If we gave up then, we’d miss the whole summer and autumn which is when most things like to grow. We should evaluate it regularly, but I don’t think I would want to give up before harvest time.”

Seeing his logic, Serena capitulated. They agreed two review dates, in March and June, and Serena made the call to Tanni. They agreed to meet at the weekend to have a look at the plot and decide how to make a start on it, and Serena invited Tanni and Celia over for lunch. “Just think,” she said, in a few months we might be serving up lots of lovely things we’ve grown ourselves!”

Jason stuck his hand out with a broad smile, and Serena grasped it firmly as they shook on the agreement. He shuffled through the seed catalogues he had collected, and divvied them up between the two of them. She saw that he had picked duplicates of each brochure so that they could choose independently of each other. As far as she could see, the catalogues all advertised more or less the same things, just via different suppliers. She had thought they might just go to a garden centre to see what was available, but evidently Jason had done some research, and she had to admit, they were lovely things to leaf through, with beautiful photography. Page after page of green foliage; rows of leeks standing to military attention; mounds of burnished pumpkins and squashes; beds of kale frothing like turbulent waves, and green pods bursting with fat peas and beans.

It was actually all rather tempting.


	4. Preparing The Ground

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Serena finds the allotment of her dreams - and then she finds the one she’s been given. Alas, they are not one and the same.

Jason and Serena had spent the days leading up to Saturday perusing the seed catalogues that he had picked up from the allotment society shop, but when they compared notes on the Friday evening, it became painfully apparent that they had very different ideas about what they wanted to grow. Serena had all sorts of ideas about exotic fruits and vegetables, and while she was aware that mangos and bananas probably wouldn’t thrive even in the balmy climate of the South West, she had started compiling a list of the things she always paid a little extra for in Waitrose: cape gooseberries, apricots, cavolo nero, romanesco broccoli, yellow courgettes and those odd shaped squash that looked a little like flying saucers. She had also scribbled down the things she remembered helping her grandmother pick in her garden in the Auvergne, as the scrawny cat twined around her bare, scratched legs: tart gooseberries that were made into a sweet, tangy conserve;  sweet little sugar snap peas and fat, bursting pods of beans, and tomatoes by the basketful: tiny sweet cherry tomatoes that tumbled out of hanging baskets; heavy, hefty beefheart tomatoes that were bigger than her fist, and a riot of oddities that would now sell for a small fortune as ‘heritage’ varieties, in astonishing hues of yellow, purple and even a glossy black.

Jason, on the other hand, had applied his information seeking skills to this task with his usual rigour. He had been down to the plot with a PH testing kit that he’d picked up at the garden centre, had been compiling a spreadsheet of temperatures, hours of sunshine and rainfall in the area over the last fifteen years (to spot any patterns and trends - “Though ideally I would like to carry out a more comprehensive longitudinal study to be on the safe side,”) and had been making careful calculations accordingly. His next step had been to trawl through a number of online seed catalogues marking up the varieties that matched the soil and conditions. It was fair to say that his selections reflected his relatively narrow ideas of what was fit to serve with a pork chop, and since he had moved in with her, Serena had found him very much meat and two veg kind of man.

It all came to a head one evening as they sat together leafing through seed catalogues on the kitchen table. In an unguarded moment, Serena exclaimed with delight at a collection of carrot seeds which promised to produce yellow, white and purple roots, and Jason had had enough.

“Carrots are meant to be orange! Why do you keep choosing things that are the wrong colour, or the wrong shape, or have got the wrong name? Carrots are orange, courgettes are green, tomatoes are red and potatoes are white. Everything you choose looks like an alien or has got a foreign name that I don’t understand, or shouldn’t  grow in England, and I’m fed up with it! I wish we’d never taken the allotment on! I think we should ring them up and tell them to give it to someone else.”

Serena realised with horror that he was perilously close to a meltdown, and she quickly closed the catalogue, pushing it away from them. 

“Jason, Jason - it’s all right. I’m sorry if I’m getting carried away, I’m just finding it all so exciting. You’re right: we should grow things that you like and that you’ll enjoy eating. But remember that I like different things from you sometimes, and this is an opportunity for me to experiment a bit.”

“I know, but everything you want to grow is weird! Why can’t I have normal things like potatoes and peas and carrots?”

It suddenly dawned upon Serena that although Jason had been to see the allotments, he might not have realised quite how big each individual plot was. “There’ll be lots of room for both of us to grow the things we want - and for Celia and Tanni, too. Most allotments are bigger than our back garden, after all. Let’s have a look when we go down there tomorrow and see how much room we've got - there might even be room for all four of us to have our own little section. All right?”

“I don’t think Celia will want her own section, it’s more her Mum’s idea really. But it might be nice to have my own bit, and then you can grow your fancy things in your bit. As long as I don’t have to _eat_ purple carrots, I don’t mind if you want to grow them,” he acceded.

“Good! That’s that settled. Let’s have another look at our lists and see which things we _do_ agree on.”

 

They exchanged lists and she ran a finger down the page. He had picked quite ordinary things, really, but had obviously read the catalogues very thoroughly, and had noted down which varieties he wanted to grow, along with their sowing and harvesting times. She had expected nothing less of him. Looking up, she was worried to see him scowling at her list. 

“Auntie Serena, I don’t think you’ve researched this at all. Half of these need acidic soil and half of them grow best in ericaceous conditions. Asparagus won’t produce a harvest for at least two years - preferably three - and I don’t think you can grown physalis in the UK - it's much too cold.” He looked genuinely cross at her lack of preparation.

“Ah, but that’s where you’re wrong! I have researched it, actually, and with a bit of preparation you can adapt the soil by adding various types of compost and other things to it - and you can grow cape gooseberries in a greenhouse. I’m sure there will be room for us to put up a small polytunnel if there isn’t one there already - we'll be able to grow all sorts of things that need a warmer temperature!” She smiled at him triumphantly. “And I know there a are a couple of things there that take a bit longer to grow, but they’re really only there as a sort of wish list. If we find we get on all right this year, then perhaps we might like to invest in things that take several years to mature, like the asparagus, and fruit trees. Of course, there might be some things there already that we decide to keep - things that the last people on the plot were growing when they decided to give it up. You never know - we might have a little smallholding all beautifully set up for us!” She beamed at him, relieved to have anticipated the things that would bother him, and at actually having a response ready. He so often wrong-footed her, but she was determined that she should be able to grow what _she_ wanted as well as the things Jason wanted.

Once they compared their lists properly, it transpired that there were quite a few things in common, albeit they had selected different varieties, and Jason was mollified somewhat. Serena’s talk of doctoring the soil had lit a spark, too, and he went back to his laptop to order a book on soil management with next day delivery, and to look at what the RHS website had to say on the subject. 

 

It occurred to Serena now, as she sighed with relief over the averted crisis, that she seemed to have moved over the last few days from a position of expecting Project Market Garden to fail spectacularly, to wanting it to be a roaring success. And when Serena Campbell set her mind on something… she had practically started designing a trophy cabinet to display all her prizes for best marrow in show.

 

***

 

Saturday morning dawned bright and crisp: it was cold, but warm enough in the sun. Serena had dug her wellies and gardening gloves out of the cupboard under the stairs, and had gathered a few gardening tools from the shed. She had had to fight her way through cobwebs to get at them: although she enjoyed pottering about in her garden throughout the year, she seldom needed anything more than a trowel, a small hand fork and a pair of secateurs to maintain the borders, and her neighbour came round every couple of weeks to mow the lawn in the growing season. She supposed she ought to do it herself, or ask Jason to do it now that he was living with her, but she hadn’t got round to it before the end of the summer. Perhaps the allotment would reignite her interest in all things horticultural.

She put a garden spade and a couple of forks in the boot of her car, along with a hoe, a rake and a semi-circular sort of spade she had never quite known the use of - she had an idea it was something to do with keeping the edges of the lawn neat, and she thought it might come in handy at the allotment for delineating the path and the growing area. She tossed in a spare pair of gloves for Jason, who she knew would want to keep as clean as he could. They were both dressed in old clothes that they wouldn’t mind getting muddy, but which were still presentable, as they were meeting Celia and Tanni in the cafe round the corner from Lovers Lane before they went to survey the allotment.

 

It was hard to tell who was more excited when they met up. Carefully carrying a tray full of drinks back to the table, Serena smiled broadly at her little team, as she had unconsciously started to think of them. Tanni and Celia were in their gardening clothes, too: she suspected that they had been to obliged to buy some new outdoor gear, as they were spotless from their cagoules to their shiny new wellies. She herself was wearing an old pair of paint-spattered jeans that she had previously worn the last time she and Elinor had redecorated her daughter’s bedroom, and a quilted gilet over a fleecy jumper. Jason, who had been watching clips of _Gardeners’ World_ online, had decided that what was good enough for Monty Don was good enough for him, and had procured a pair of broad-strapped braces, clipped to a baggy old pair of trousers. As he explained to Celia and Tanni, “There’s a lot of bending and lifting when you’re digging, and I don’t want my trousers to fall down,” which seemed entirely reasonable.

 

Chatting over their coffee, they exchanged details of their gardening experience. Serena confessed that these days her gardening went little further than pruning her roses and replacing bedding plants each spring, but talked very animatedly about the little garden in France, and about the vegetable garden her father had maintained at the bottom of the garden in her childhood home: “I don’t think my mother approved, really - I think she would have preferred something much grander - given her way she would have had the gardens at Versailles in miniature - but he needed a place to retreat to, I think - and she couldn’t really complain when he brought her fresh lettuces and potatoes.”

Tanni’s terraced house only had a tiny courtyard garden, but she had filled it with pots and troughs full of all kinds of plants, both edible and ornamental, and it was clear that she was much more knowledgeable than she gave herself credit for. She was a little nervous of the scale of an allotment after all this time making do with her little back yard, but delighted that Jason had thought to ask them to help out. Serena had also been pleased, not just that he had foreseen the need to bring in some extra manpower, but that he had been thoughtful enough to invite Tanni, who had been so keen to have her own allotment. It demonstrated his innate kindness, so often disguised behind his blunt, matter-or-fact manner.

 

“So have you been to size it up yet, Serena?” Tanni asked.

She shook her head. “I just haven’t had time this week, although Jason’s very kindly thought up some ways to streamline things for me. I’m getting into the swing of it - and our old cleaner is coming back in a week or so, so that will help. I’ve got high hopes though - I'm assuming that if the waiting list is so long it’s because people are really devoted to their plots so it should be in pretty good condition - not too much digging for us!”

Tanni shot her a wry look. “I shouldn’t be too sure. There are some fairly wild and neglected ones around. People don’t always realise how much they’re taking on, and after the initial burst of enthusiasm some folk just let it get out of hand. I think the important thing is to be able to commit to little and often - if you can spend half an hour on it three or four times a week you’ll be okay, but it’s no good blitzing it and then ignoring it for weeks at a time. Of course, plenty of people do look after them beautifully - I’ve seen some that look as thought they could win prizes at the Chelsea Flower Show! We’ll just have to cross our fingers that yours is one of the well-cared-for variety.”

“Well, drink up, folks, and we’ll go and see for ourselves!” exclaimed Serena. “I’ve brought a few bits and bobs along in case the urge takes us to get started today, but I’m just as happy to see what’s there and then go home for lunch and a good old planning session.”

 

Having paid the bill, they made their way around the corner to Lovers Lane, a gently sloping _cul de sac_ that led down to a locked five bar gate and a stile leading into the allotments.

“We should be able to get a key from the allotment society,” Jason explained, “but I didn’t have the right proof of identity. I think you’ll need to do that, Auntie Serena, as it’s your name on the list.” 

They climbed over the stile with varying degrees of grace and athleticism. Serena stood for a moment and took the scene in. Although they were still in a relatively urban part of Holby, the hum of traffic was blocked out by the screen of mature trees - horse chestnut, elder and hawthorn, and several other varieties that she couldn’t be sure of until their leaves came back in the spring time. A broad central path led through the field, with perhaps a dozen or so allotments on either side. Water troughs were dotted around, and it looked as though most allotments had at least a shed (though some were in a fairly perilous state of repair), and some had polytunnels, to her relief. She hadn’t been entirely sure that they would be permitted, despite her assertion to Jason.

There was tremendous variation on show, ranging from high raised beds with perfectly raked bare soil, to flat plots covered over with weed-suppressant fabric studded with rows of cabbages and the tall, startling stalks of Brussels sprouts; rows of well-pruned raspberry canes and thriving rhubarb crowns; a plot which looked more like a wildlife meadow with tall grasses shielding two or three beehives, and at the far end there was a wooden sign among some fruit trees reading “Lovers Lane Community Orchard.”

“Oh!” She breathed. “Isn’t it idyllic? I wonder why they haven’t made more plots over on that side, where all those brambles are?”

Jason, who had been surveying the scene happily, shifted from foot to foot, and coughed nervously, but Serena was too busy looking around to notice.

“The plots have little number plates, look! That’s very cute. Let’s see… nine… ten… number seventeen must be over there I think, by the edge. Oh, I hope it’s the one with the lovely little shed and the bench, I can just imagine sitting with a cup of coffee after a hard morning’s digging.” Serena led the way along the side of the field, counting off the plot numbers under her breath. “… twelve… thirteen… - oh, that’s a shame, I so wanted it to be this one. Oh well, it’s a bit close to the brambles - probably a nightmare to keep clear anyway” Her gaze lingered on the neat site with its raised beds, the newly painted shed and the lovely little relaxation area looking so very inviting in the morning sun. Puzzled, she looked round. “The numbers have stopped! Is there another section somewhere that we haven’t noticed?”

It was Celia in the end who noticed something glinting through the undergrowth, among the thistles, brambles and bindweed bordering the plot of Serena’s dreams. “Mum, look - there’s something in there. I can’t reach it - ow! It’s too sharp!” Tanni kicked aside the thick tangle of thorns, revealing the enamelled tin sign leaning at a drunken angle amongst the weeds, and wiped the dirt off its surface to reveal the simple painted figure 17. Serena looked at it grimly.

“We’re going to need a bigger spade.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those of you wondering, we _are_ going to catch a glimpse of messy blonde hair very soon!


	5. Digging In

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Serena and her fellow gardeners get stuck in to clearing the allotment, Robbie Medcalf is Dealt With (TM) and they get a little help from a friend. Jason makes possibly the best joke of his life.
> 
> Oh, and someone is looking for plot number thirteen...

They looked with dismay at the plot, so very far from Serena’s idea of what an allotment should look like.

“They must have decided to squeeze in some extra plots to try and tackle the waiting list, I suppose,” Tanni mused. “I can’t say I disapprove, but goodness, what a lot of work it’s going to be to clear this lot!”

Serena looked aghast. “They surely can’t expect us to clear all this? You’d think they’d come and bulldoze it, or take a flame thrower to it before they gave it to us. It’s ridiculous. I don’t think we can do it. I’m sorry, it’s just too much.” Her lips set in a firm line, her mind made up, but her shoulders slumped in disappointment. As unexpected as the whole thing had been, she had talked herself into really wanting to make a success of it, but now that she saw the enormity of the task, it just seemed overwhelming and impossible. Her heart clenched when she saw Jason’s face fall.

“I'm sorry Auntie Serena, I shouldn't have made you take it on. I thought we could clear it - I thought keeping an allotment would be a really good stress reliever for you, but I don’t want to make you even more stressed. I’m sorry I got it wrong.”

“Oh, Jason, you didn’t get it wrong - it was _such_ a good idea, but it just looks so difficult to clear. Tanni, you’re the gardener - do you think it’s doable?”

Tanni, who had been rooting around in the undergrowth with a sturdy stick, let out a deep breath. “Well, anything’s doable, I suppose - it’s just a question of how long it will take. In our favour, it’s very early to be thinking about sowing or planting anything - I'd say we’ve got a good couple of months before we even need to start thinking about putting anything in, though we might want to start some bits and pieces off under glass ready to put in when the soil warms up a bit. Why don’t we make a start on clearing it this morning and see how we get on? That will give us an idea of how long it might take to do the whole lot.”

 

Tanni had brought a few garden tools along with her as well, so between them they had enough equipment to get to work. Tanni started by clearing the worst of the brambles down to ground level with a pair of long handled loppers, and Jason carefully carried the tangles to a heap at the far end of the plot. “We’ll have a good bonfire once we’ve cleared all this!” Tanni said. Serena and Celia followed after them, at first with spades, but it soon became apparent that the root system was too thick and tough to yield to the dull edges of their spades, so they switched to using forks to break up the heavy soil around the roots, then tugging as much as the could out of the ground. It was slow, heavy work, and although Tanni had made fairly rapid progress with the loppers, it was almost worse to see how big the plot was, and how much there was to dig over. Serena estimated that it was about the size of a tennis court, though perhaps a little longer and narrower.

“We really need to try and get every little bit of root out of the ground,” explained Tanni. “Any roots left in will develop into a new plant, and as much as I like blackberries, I’d much rather pick them from the hedgerows and grow fruit and veg here!”

“Every little bit?” asked Serena in dismay. She looked back over the scant few square feet she had already dug, knowing that she had left plenty of little roots behind. “It’s impossible! You can’t dig down deep enough to get it all - it just breaks off. I’m all for organic gardening, but I'm beginning to see the appeal in using weed killer now - isn’t there something we can use to make sure it doesn’t grow back?”

Jason was up in arms immediately. “No chemicals!” he stated firmly. “I don’t want to eat things that have been grown with chemicals all over them, and anyway, you're not allowed. There’s a long list on the website of things you’re not allowed to use here, and it wouldn't be fair to the other allotmenteers to use them - if you use chemicals it gets into the soil and it will taint their plants, too.”

Not for the first time, Serena regretted her throwaway remark. “It’s all right Jason, I’m not planning on using weed killer. It would just be nice to find a way of stopping the brambles growing back again.” She frowned for a moment. “Allotmenteers? Is that a real word?”

Tanni laughed. “Believe it or not, it is. And I suppose that’s who we are now - the Four Allotmenteers!”

 

By the time they were ready to take a break, the allotments had started to get busier. There were several people, in their ones and twos, dotted around the site. Although it wasn't a busy growing time of the year, it seemed that there was still plenty to do. A tall stocky middle aged man who had been inspecting his own allotment further along the edge of the field came over when he saw that they had stopped to pour coffee from the thermos Serena had brought with her.

“Hello! Haven’t seen you before - I don’t envy you with that lot. You’ll be here until next Christmas digging that over at this rate!”

Jason looked back over his shoulder at their morning’s work and frowned. “Your maths isn’t very good, is it? It’s taken four of us ninety minutes to clear approximately six square metres. That’s a rate of one square metre per person per hour: the average allotment on this site is two hundred and fifty square metres, so we’ve only got another two hundred and forty four to do. If we spend three hours a week we’ll be finished by -”

“Blimey, all right Professor Hawking. It was just a figure of speech.”

Her hackles rising, Serena swept in. “We’re getting along just fine, aren’t we, Jason? There’s a lot to do, but we’re making good progress - many hands make light work, as they say.”

He scoffed, widening his stance and posturing with his arms crossed. “I don’t need many hands - a rotavator does the job in a fraction of the time. I’ve got a real beauty, thirteen horse power - bought it for a song on Ebay and restored it myself, goes like a dream. I could always give your, ah… _plot_ a good going over,” he leered, looking Serena up and down salaciously.

Standing up straighter and giving him a look that had made grown consultants quake in their boots, she sniffed. “That really won’t be necessary, thank you, Mr…”

“Medcalf,” he supplied, “but call me Robbie.”

”It really won’t be necessary Mr Medcalf. We took on an allotment because we wanted to garden, not play with diggers. And besides, if you use a rotavator on a briar patch like this, you’ll leave lots of root fragments behind - each of which will form a new plant. Do you think you got all the roots out of your allotment?” She smiled sweetly at him.

“Rubbish! You think an inch or two of root is going to take over my allotment? Pfft!”

“Oh, it’s really _very_ basic gardening knowledge. You don’t have be to be Professor Hawking to know that.” She raised a scornful eyebrow and turned her back on him with a dismissive air. He hesitated, scowling for a moment, then turned on his heel and stomped off back to his own allotment.

“What an obnoxious oaf!” Serena exploded. “Macho twat. Oh, I’m sorry Celia,” she caught herself, seeing the young woman’s wide eyes. 

“I don’t mind,” Celia responded. “I didn’t like him either. He was rude to Jason and not very nice to you. I like digging, anyway.”

Serena threw a sheepish smile at Tanni. “I hope you don’t mind? I just couldn’t bear the thought of being beholden to him.”

“Quite right, too,” Tanni laughed. “And you’re right about the rotavator, by the way. And even if you were going to use one, thirteen horse power is ridiculous - it’s a sledgehammer to crack a nut. He’ll be overrun again in no time. If you dig them out, they might come back, but you’ve got a better chance of wearing them down. If you leave all those bits in the soil, it’s like pruning - you cut them back and they just come back stronger.”

“Like Obi Wan Kenobi,” Jason piped up. “It’s better to use the fork.”

There was a moment of stunned silence, then the three women burst out laughing. Jason didn't often make jokes, but Serena had found that when he did, they were good ones.

“Right then, young Jedi. Let's get back to work - I'm determined to do this by hand now, even if it breaks my back.”

 

By the time they got home, she thought it might have done just that. They had cleared over a quarter of the briar patch, but it had taken them several hours, and her back was complaining loudly. A long soak in the bath with a large glass of Shiraz was called for. Lying back, glass in hand, feeling her muscles gradually relax, she wondered, not for the first time, whether she had bitten off more than she could chew. Remembering Robbie Medcalf’s supercilious attitude, she clenched her jaw in an expression that her colleagues would have recognised with a gulp. Honestly, he had been _so_ rude - and the crack at Jason had been too much to let pass. Granted, Robbie couldn’t have known that Jason had Asperger's syndrome, but anyone with a scintilla of sensitivity could tell that Jason was just a bit different from other young men of his age - and what was wrong with being quick off the mark, anyway? _He’s probably one of those people who thinks the country’s had “enough of experts_ ,” she thought grumpily.

 

***

 

The next time she and Jason made it down to the allotment a few days later, Serena gazed over the untackled portion of their plot and sighed. There was still so much to do, and she really had felt drained after their previous attempts. Further up the row, Robbie the Rotavator  was studiously ignoring her as he carefully planted several rows of young leafy things - cabbages? - and firmed the soil around them. Daunted by the task ahead of them, she worried that that she might have to swallow her pride and ask for Robbie’s help, but as she gazed forlornly at the tangle of stems that Tanni had cut back the previous week, she heard a familiar voice call her name.

“Serena! What on earth are you doing here?”

She turned back towards the gate, and to her delight saw Raf Di Lucca striding towards her in a pair of grubby old overalls, a garden hoe slung casually over his shoulder like a soldier with his rifle.

“Hello, you! What do you think I’m doing - I’m a proud Allotmenteer! Don’t tell me you’ve got an allotment down here too? How marvellous! You can show me the ropes. What do you think of the show so far?” She gestured at the wild tangle behind her.

“Oof - I don’t envy you! I wondered who they’d fob off with these plots - how long have you been waiting for one? I didn’t know you were a gardener.”

“Well, to be honest, I’m not - I applied for this years ago to try and give us something to do as a family - that dates it rather, doesn’t it? - and I’d forgotten all about it. I got quite a shock when it came through, but Jason’s persuaded me to give it a go, and his friend Celia and her mum are helping out. Do you really think we’ve been fobbed off?”

He looked appraisingly over the section they had already cleared, and kicked aside some of the scrub on the part they had yet to address. “I think you have a bit, I’m afraid. I don’t think this strip was ever intended for cultivation - you see these ones are longer and narrower than the others? They’re really squeezing every last inch out of the allotment sites in Holby now to try and meet the demand. I’ve been down here for about seven years now, I think - this bit’s never been tended in all that time, so the roots will be deep and persistent. Looks like you’ve done a good job with the bit you’ve done already, though. I’d say just take your time, only clear as much as you're ready to plant up, cover the rest up to stop it getting any worse. We’ve probably got a bit of old carpet you could use - even the brambles won’t get through that.”

“Hmm. That sounds like bad news, good news. I have to say, I do like the idea of not clearing the whole bloody lot in one go! My back was killing me after that session - I was even thinking about taking that prat up on his offer of his digger thingy.” She jerked her head towards Robbie, who was measuring the gaps between the new plants with a wooden ruler.

“Robbie the Bobby? Christ, Serena, steer clear of him if you can. He’s been here five minutes and he thinks he’s Percy Thrower - keeps giving everyone unsolicited advice - most of it wrong, I should point out.”

Serena laughed. “I have to say I didn’t take to him. His idea of a chat up was to insult Jason and leer at me as though I was a prize marrow, then brag about the superior horsepower of his mighty engine.”

“Don't take him up on it, whatever you do. It feels like a sensible shortcut to turn the ground over, but it will only bring more heartache in the end - it’s just a big blender, and you don't want to leave all that root soup in the soil to re-grow. And bigger isn’t necessarily better - more power just means a finer blend, so more pieces to grow back. It’s like fighting the hydra trying to control brambles - you need to cut it back as far down as you can, and cauterise it - we’ll have a big bonfire on the worst of it, then cover it over until you’re ready to dig. But don’t let me interfere - we all get enough of that from PC Plod.”

“There’s a very big difference between interfering and helping out a friend, and I know which one you’re doing, Raf. Thank you - a bonfire sounds like a splendid idea, but I’ll just run it past Tanni - she’s the expert out of the two of us. Which is your plot? Oh, do say it’s number thirteen - I can’t tell you how disappointed I was when I got here and saw it - and then saw mine!”

“I wish it was - it’s a beauty, isn’t it? No, we’re over here.” He led her over to  a well tended plot still bursting with overwintering vegetables and bare fruit canes.

“Let me see,”Serena said, “cabbages, kale, Brussels sprouts, onions, and - what are those, broad beans?”

“Very good!” He applauded. “Three kinds of kale, too - Evie can’t eat enough of it.” 

She glanced up at him, a delighted smile on her face. “Oh, the Fletchings help you out, do they? How lovely.” He smiled awkwardly, a light flush rising up his neck. 

“We share it - Fletch started helping out when they moved in to help put food on the table, he said, ‘cause he couldn’t really afford to contribute to household bills much at first, then the kids started coming along, and it’s kind of a family concern now.”

“Well, well. Adrian Fletcher with dirt beneath his nails - I wouldn’t have thought it. What a friend you are to him, Raf - I do love our little AAU bromance!” She stepped in and hugged him tightly for a moment, missing the bashful look on his face.

“Aye, well - all one big happy family, aren’t we?” he said, but before he could elaborate, the blissful peace of the allotment was interrupted by a great revving and roaring of an engine, and dirty grey clouds of smoke began to drift their way. They turned to see Robbie preparing his rotavator for use on the far end of his plot where the ground was still compacted and thick with weeds: a huge, lovingly polished red behemoth of a thing, the tines gleaming in the winter sun. He glanced over to them and smiled smugly, revving up a couple more times for effect, then lowered the business end into the soil - where it promptly bucked and reared, as he struggled to hang on to it like a cowboy at his first rodeo.

“Just let go!” Raf shouted, but his words went unheard over the din of the engine. Panicking, Robbie held on tighter to the handles, thereby shifting it up a gear or two as he tried to control it. As if it had a life of its own, the machine dug in deeper to the heavy clay, twisting and clawing like a wild animal. Serena and Raf watched as Robbie was dragged behind the possessed machine, thirteen stone of sturdy copper struggling to keep his feet on the ground as it chewed its way through the rough ground - and then straight through the carefully regulated cabbages he had just planted. The engine finally sputtered and died as it eventually occurred to him to release the handles, and he kicked it balefully and limped off into his shed, slamming the door firmly shut behind him.

“Let’s lock him in,” whispered Raf mischievously. Serena laughed, shaking her head. “Leave him to stew in his own juices. I’ve got a bit more digging to do - I’ll leave you to your weeding.”

“Tell you what - why don’t I give you some of our spare cabbage plants so you can get something in the ground now? There’s no point clearing the ground and then leaving it bare for the weeds to cover again. We started them off under glass and we’ve got loads more than we had room for in the end - you might as well have them, or they’ll only go on the compost heap.”

Serena accepted the young plants gratefully, and proudly planted them in neat rows in her own allotment. As she worked, Robbie stomped past her, and she looked up to see his knees and boots absolutely covered in the mud the rogue rotavator had thrown up.

“Am I getting the spacing right, do you think? I saw how neat yours looked.” She smiled sweetly at him as he scowled at her, grunting something that might have been a “yes” - but might equally have been something much ruder.

 

Serena finished up and put her tools away in the rickety old shed, looking longingly at the gorgeous beach hut of a shed on plot number thirteen, and brushed herself down, chuckling to herself again as she remembered how bedraggled Robbie had looked. She knew it was good to have friends - but sometimes it was more fun to have enemies. She climbed over the stile - she really must sort out getting hold of a key - and as she walked up Lovers Lane towards her car, she idly noticed a dark green Land Rover passing her and drawing up by the gate. Another allotment neighbour, perhaps. They would probably meet in due course. She had gone by the time the driver had parked up, and didn’t see the belaboured effort it took her to climb down, awkwardly negotiating with a walking stick which seemed determined to entangle itself with the steering wheel. Nor did she see her pull out a letter with the familiar crest of Holby City Council with its wyvern rampant, and mutter, “Right. Plot thirteen. Where are you, then?” as she shook a messy tangle of bright blonde hair out of her eyes.


	6. Thorny Ground

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Serena gets to know a few of her allotment neighbours, and finally meets the tenant of plot thirteen. She’s fairly reserved and doesn’t give much away about herself, but Serena is quite capable of filling in the gaps herself.

The weeks ticked by, and the allotments started to show more signs of life every day. It seemed as though Serena and her little gang of gardeners met someone new each time they went, and by and large they were a friendly bunch. There were a number of old timers who had been there for twenty years and longer, but the undisputed godfather of the site was Bob, a gnarled old chap whose clothes, hair and face had all mellowed to varying shades of the soil. He came across as a grumpy old so and so, but was kind, and full of knowledge, which on a good day, and with the right person, he would share with his allotment neighbours. Serena had turned the full blaze of her charm on him, but it was Jason who really connected with him, Bob appreciating his studious nature and his genuine unquenchable thirst to know and understand. Only mildly put out that the famous Campbell charm had fallen short, Serena was actually delighted that Jason had found such a positive male figure to spend time with, and gruff though Bob could be, he had only kind encouraging words for Jason, who was slowly overcoming his aversion to getting his hands and clothes dirty.

They had befriended a couple on a plot at the opposite corner of the site, Louise and Claire, who had approached them with open arms, exclaiming how lovely it was to have yet another same sex couple on the allotments, leading to much hilarity and good natured teasing when Tanni explained that their family wasn’t quite what it might have looked like. Serena wondered what they meant by “yet another” gay couple - Lovers Lane must be a positive hotbed of LGBT gardeners, but she didn’t know who else they could mean. Perhaps there were some fair weather allotmenteers who hadn’t braved the winter months, and would emerge like beautiful flamboyant butterflies as the spring and summer came round.

By March, they thought they had met just about everyone at least once, though they couldn’t remember everyone’s name. The glaring exception was the owner, if there was one, of plot number thirteen. It had become Serena’s habit to rail against the council who had given them the hardest ground to cultivate while their dream plot stood empty next to them, but Tanni assured her that it was being looked after if you knew the signs. The soil was weed free, a trench had been dug and filled with kitchen compost - “ready for sowing runner beans,” Tanni explained, and one afternoon Serena noticed several cigarette ends at the foot of the garden bench. Clearly, someone was doing _something_ here, but there wasn’t much to show for it.

 

It wasn’t just their circle of friends that was growing. The cabbages that Raf had given them were coming along nicely, and Bob had shown them how to net them against the threat of the pigeons that loved nothing more than the tender green tops. They had cleared more of their plot now, little by little as they were able to use it, as Raf had recommended. They took pride in digging it over carefully and picking out strand after strand of root: the soft but tough twisted bramble roots that snapped infuriatingly as you tugged at them, leading to ever deeper digging, and the bindweed that twined around everything in sight. They were quite good fun to remove, as they tugged at handful after handful of the vines, following them back to their source at ground level, then digging out the thick white roots. They broke easily, too, but were so easy to spot in the dark soil that they felt a little like blackbirds darting forward eagerly to pick up the roots like so many fat white worms. 

 

They had enriched the soil with some well-rotted manure that they had begged from riding stables just outside Holby (Serena had been very glad that Tanni had volunteered to collect it in her old Volvo estate, and Jason had flatly refused to go anywhere near it), and they were ready to sow their first potatoes once the soil had warmed up sufficiently. Bob had told them that it was traditional to plant the first earlies on Good Friday, and now nothing else would do for Jason, for whom Bob’s word was gospel. Bob had told them, too, that planting potatoes would help break up the long dormant soil, and their leafy tops would help prevent weeds from growing back, so for this first year, they were going to plant up nearly a third of the plot with spuds. Serena had insisted that they at least grow several different varieties, and had managed to get a purple variety past Jason, as well as pink fir apples, which were so expensive to buy in the shops, but so nice in salads. They had put in a row each of beetroot, parsnip and carrots, though both Bob and Raf had warned them that the carrots wouldn’t come to much in the heavy soil. As an experiment, though, Jason had wanted to sow some to see how they turned out, and he had also sown some in a trough with a special mixture of sieved soil, sand and grit that he had concocted himself after a particularly back-breaking visit to the garden centre.

With a little help from Raf and Fletch, they had put up a small polytunnel at the far end of their allotment, happily blocking sight of Robbie Medcalfe’s plot. Raf was quick to say that they had only supervised, really - it was Jason and Celia who had done the hard work. Inside they had knocked up some shelves out of old pallets, and had started off tomatoes, chillies and even the cape gooseberries Serena had dreamed of, all in little seed trays, ready to be transplanted to individual pots when they were big and strong enough.

 

One morning late in March, Serena made her way down to Lovers Lane armed with a brand new strimmer. The grass paths were starting to look overgrown, and Bob had made it clear that the paths as well as the allotments were to be kept in good order, and that it was the responsibility of each plot holder. She had charged up the battery, and brought a spare along as well, but to her enormous frustration found that she couldn’t get the blasted thing started. She had skim-read the instructions and was certain that she was squeezing the handle and the safety trigger in the right order, but despite the happy green glow of the battery indicator, all she could summon up was a whirring, buzzing noise.

“Stupid bastarding thing!” She muttered as she tried again. “Why won’t you just _work_?”

“Motor been whining or growling?”

Serena nearly jumped out of her skin. She had been so intent on getting the strimmer going that she hadn’t heard the woman approaching behind her, and she turned abruptly, a hand to her chest.

“Good god, you made me jump! Uh… more whining than growling, I suppose. It’s brand new - it can’t be broken already.” She smiled at the newcomer, a tall woman around her own age, she supposed, leaning on a spade and smiling back at her. She was as lean as Serena was curvaceous, with dark brown eyes that crinkled as she smiled, but the thing that Serena noticed first was a mess of blonde hair, as tangled as her allotment had been a few weeks ago, but which somehow looked glorious all the same. 

“Sorry to startle you. I’m Bernie - I think we’re neighbours.” Serena was confused for a moment: she knew most of her neighbours and was sure she’d have remembered Bernie, but then it clicked. 

“Oh - you’re number thirteen!” 

Bernie nodded. “I’m number thirteen. Would you like me to have a look at it?” She pushed her spade firmly into the soil, leaning one hip against it, and held her hand out.

Serena passed it over, and Bernie swung it upside down to look at the business end. “Aha - thought so. Look - there’s a little retaining bolt that needs removing first, like you get in washing machines, to stop the blade doing any damage in transit. You don’t get it with the cheaper ones that use a cord - this looks like a nice one,” she said approvingly. She deftly unscrewed the bolt and dropped it in Serena's palm. “Try it now,” she said, handing it back.

Serena squeezed the handle and the safety trigger, and the strimmer hummed into life. She gave an experimental swipe across the grass, beaming as it fell away neatly.

“Thank you! Are you a mechanic, then?”

Bernie gave a short laugh. “No, no. I’m… well, I just like fixing things, I suppose. Well - happy strimming.” She flushed a little. “That sounds… uh… happy mowing. Whatever.” They caught each other's eye, and Serena laughed, a twinkle in her eye.

“I knew what you meant. Thanks again. I owe you one. Right, better get stuck in!”

 

She switched the strimmer on again and got to work on the path that bisected their two plots. She was inordinately pleased at how easily it cleared the long grass, but found that her forearms tired very quickly with the weight of the thing. She alternated cutting with raking the cut grass into piles, then carrying it to the compost heap up by the polytunnel. She worked her way round the edges of the plot, then tackled the edge that blended away into the hedgerow. She wanted to keep it under control so that the weeds didn’t transgress onto the allotment, and the strimmer was powerful enough to cope with the thick and thorny stems. The waste from this edge went on a pile for a bonfire: Bob had warned them not to put anything on the compost heap that they’d deliberately removed from the plot - these persistent weeds could survive and lie dormant for a long time, and when they used the compost on the soil - hey presto, back to life they came.

Serena had been working with such focus that she found herself surprised to have got to the end of the strip, and looked back on her work with satisfaction. The edges could do with neatening up - that was what the mysterious semi-circular spade was for, she had learned. She glanced at her watch, and decided to stop for a well earned cup of coffee first. She pulled a thermos flask out of her bag and was about to pour herself a cup, when she saw Bernie stretching her back out, hand to hip. On an impulse, Serena strode over, giving her a little wave.

 

“Yoohoo! I wondered if you fancied a coffee? I’ve got plenty here, and a spare cup in the lid, I think.”

Bernie turned cautiously, using her hoe to pivot and gradually straightening up.  “Oh, you’re an angel. I’d love one. Come and sit down if you've got time?

Serena groaned luxuriously as she sat down. “I was hoping you’d say that. I got a bit carried away, didn’t realise how much I was doing. Still,” she twinkled, “I've got a beautifully trimmed bush now… and I’m more than ready for a sit down.” She unscrewed the flask and filled her own cup and the enamelled tin mug Bernie fetched from her shed, absentmindedly still carrying the hoe in her other hand as she lowered herself onto the bench. She took a sip of the scalding coffee.

“Mm, that hits the spot. Just how I like it - none of that frappa-cappucino malarkey.”

“Mm, strong and hot’s all I care about!” Serena agreed with a wink. They fell into easy conversation, small talk about the glorious morning, the heaviness of the clay soil, the invasive nature of the weeds and their constant struggle to hold them at bay. “Not that you seem to have much trouble with them,” Serena observed.

Bernie looked happily around her allotment. “Well, I’ve had a lot of help. I couldn’t have done all this on my own, especially when I first got back.”

“Got back? Oh, have you been abroad?”

“Yes,” Bernie answered shortly. Then, feeling Serena’s curiosity hanging unsatisfied between them, she elaborated. “I had to come back, obviously, when it all blew up - literally - and then I had the whole divorce thing to contend with. Even when I got back on my feet I was pretty shaky, so having the help here was wonderful. It’s been a godsend, really.”

“Divorce, eh? Welcome to the club - I’m a fully paid up member myself. Any children to complicate things?” 

Bernie’s expression closed a little, then relaxed as she inspected a tuft of grass caught in the tread of her boot, worrying at it to dislodge it.

“Yes, as if it wasn’t complicated enough already. At least they’ve both already flown the nest, so no messy custody issues. They’re both studying at the moment, so we’ll see who they choose to come home to longer term. Christmas wasn’t much fun, but it’s early days yet. How about you - is that your son and daughter I’ve seen down here with your friend?” There was a sort of courteous carefulness about the question that Serena put down to the fact that Jason and Celia were both undeniably a little different from other people of their age, but she didn’t detect any discomfort or unkindness in the asking.

“Jason’s my nephew - he lives with me now. Celia is a friend of his from college - well, I think they’re boyfriend and girlfriend, actually, it’s all rather sweet. Celia’s mum’s been waiting for an allotment for ages, so it seemed to make sense for us to share when I got mine. I don’t think we’d have managed to get this far without her, to be honest. We’re a slightly rag tag bunch, I suppose, but we’re enjoying it. It’s been very good for Jason, helped him deal with some of his anxieties about hyper-cleanliness, and he loves to have something to research and throw himself into. He has Asperger’s syndrome,” she added as something of an aside, “and he tends to be an all or nothing kind of guy with hobbies and interests. This is a more constructive one than some - it’s been lovely to get him away from a television screen and out in the open air. It’s been good for me as well, come to think of it.”

“Oh? What do you do when you’re not digging and mowing, then?”

“I’m a doctor. Surgeon, actually: I work at Holby City hospital, on AAU. Sorry, that’s Advanced Assessment Unit - all kinds of everything. It’s hard work, as you might imagine, but very rewarding. I can’t think of anything I’d rather be doing, but it’s very nice having this place to decompress and recharge my batteries.” Serena noticed Bernie’s head jerk a little higher at the mention of her workplace, and a hand went up to her sternum unthinkingly. “Do you know the hospital?”

Bernie gave a grim little laugh. “Been there, done that, got the - well, no, actually I lost the t-shirt, come to think of it.”

“Sounds as though there’s a story behind that. I hope we took good care of you?”

“The very best,” Bernie replied, an earnest expression on her face. “I can’t tell you how much I admire the NHS - all of you. It was such an eye-opener, seeing what you have to deal with - all the red tape, the funding cuts, all the politics… I don’t know if I could work like that.” 

Serena took the complement graciously, a warm smile on her face. “It's what we do,” she said simply. “You’re right: it brings its own challenges, but as long as you keep the patient at the heart of things you can’t go too far wrong. You just have to keep reminding the top brass about that little fact, though. Makes me ever so popular!” She winked again, and Bernie laughed.

“What do you do?” Serena asked her.

Bernie looked away for a moment, fiddling with the zip of her shabby old dark green jacket. “Not much at the moment. I suppose I’m weighing things up and trying to work out what I really want to do next. It feels like a bit of a turning point, you know? Time for a new chapter. It doesn’t seem as though I’ll going back out there any time soon, anyway, and I’ll need to find something to do soon to keep me from going mad. I don’t mind my own company, but too much of it probably isn’t very healthy.”

“Whereabouts were you, before you came home?” Serena asked curiously, turning in towards Bernie a little.

“Oh, out in the Middle East,” she said vaguely, waving a hand as if she were giving directions to the next village. 

 

Serena looked appraisingly at her companion. Although she was dressed in old gardening clothes - torn jeans, a faded red and cream checked shirt and a well worn waxed jacket - she was undeniably an attractive woman, with that halo of blonde hair, a faded tan and an upright bearing. No makeup, no jewellery, but a sort of authority and presence about her that suggested she was used to being listened to: perhaps she had had domestic staff? The talk of the Middle East and what sounded like a gruelling divorce told Serena everything she needed to know, and she had already put two and two together to come to her own conclusions. Bernie had obviously been the trophy wife of some bigwig in a major firm doing business in - Dubai? Saudi? - one of those places, and had, presumably, been replaced by a younger, shinier trophy. She had returned to the UK to recover from the humiliation (and Serena knew all about _that_ , thanks to her own serial trophy collector, Edward Campbell), and her current lack of occupation pointed towards a comfortable divorce settlement. _Well, good for her_ , she thought. _Must have had a decent lawyer_.

 

“I’d rather be in Holby any day of the week,” said Serena stoutly. “It might not be as sunny and glamorous as the Middle East, but it’s a hell of a lot more friendly. Welcome home!” She stuck her hand out for Bernie to take, and shook it warmly. “And I have to say as well, congratulations on this absolute peach of an allotment. Have you had it for long?”

“No - just a few weeks - well, I suppose it’s a couple of months now. I got a letter from the council saying that DFV had got it ready for me, and here I am.” Serena wondered fleetingly what DFV stood for - Department for Vegetables? Surely not! - but didn’t like to look ignorant in front of this new, striking acquaintance. 

“Well, you must have been on the waiting list for even longer than me to get this beauty. When did you apply?”

Bernie seemed quite unaware of the scale of the allotment shortage in Holby, and answered candidly, “Oh, not long at all. To be honest, I didn’t know there was a queue - I didn’t realise they were so popular. When I got back, a friend - well, former colleague, I suppose - arranged it for me - thought it might do me good to have something to occupy my time, I suppose, and get a bit of fresh air. I took a bit of convincing, but I think I’m going to enjoy it. How about you - did you have long to wait?”

Serena’s smile had faded, and her warm brown eyes were suddenly as hard as flint. “Oh, just s _even years_. Seven years, and I get this vicious thicket - and you get it all prepared for you and you’re not even sure you want it? Who did you have to sleep with to get that, then? Oh, it’s not what you know but who you know, isn’t it - it’s the same the world over.”

Taken aback at Serena’s abrupt outpouring of rage, Bernie shrank a little, but rallied to defend herself. “Look, I know not everyone agrees with what we were doing over there, but my work was really about picking up the pieces, and -” but Serena cut her off without listening.

“I’ve got to go, I’ve got an urgent appointment I mustn’t be late for. I’d hate anyone to _jump the queue_ on me,” she said darkly. She stood up sharply, snagging the flask and turning on her heel. She paused only one enough to pick up the strimmer, and stalked over to the gate, the effect only spoiled as she had to clamber awkwardly over the stile with the strimmer in one hand.

 

Bernie watched her go with hurt bewilderment.


	7. Stony Ground

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Serena has made up her mind about Bernie, but Jason and Tanni have other ideas, and help Serena see not only Bernie but also herself in a new light - and the latter is not particularly favourable.
> 
> Oh - and Serena and Tanni observe Robbie’s gardening techniques - and their review is not entirely favourable either.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning for reported ableist behaviour / language
> 
> Those of you who enjoyed seeing poor Robbie dragged through the mud by his own rotavator a couple of chapters ago, I’m appalled at you - appalled. I’m sure it was a one-off gardening mishap... ;-)

“Auntie Serena, you didn’t even _want_ the allotment - you’d forgotten you’d applied for it. I don’t understand why you’re so cross.”

Jason was being infuriatingly reasonable, and there was almost nothing more calculated to ratchet Serena’s ire up even further.

“I’m cross, Jason, because she cheated. You know how long the waiting list is: there must be hundreds of people waiting for an allotment, and not only has she been given one just like that, but someone else seems to have done all the hard work for her. It’s typical, people like that, they just waltz in and help themselves to things.”

“People like what?” he asked, a puzzled frown on his face.

“Expats! Building their own little British Empires wherever they go: G&T on the verandah, polo matches and god Save the Queen… Bored, wealthy airhead wives with more money than sense, probably all sleeping with each other’s husbands - no wonder she’s divorced!”

“She doesn’t look very wealthy,” Jason said uncertainly. “Or like an airhead. She seemed very intelligent when I spoke to her.”

“What do you mean, when you spoke to her? When have you spoken to her? What did she say about me?” Serena sounded panicked, as indeed she was. She knew that she had behaved badly, had been rude, hadn’t allowed Bernie to explain herself, but what possible explanation could she have for such blatant exploitation of the system? All the same, she would prefer Jason not to have heard Bernie’s side of the story - she doubted that she would have come out of it very well.

Jason frowned again. “Why would she say anything about you? I talk to her whenever we’re both there, she’s nice. And I don’t think she’s a cheat. She seems like a very honest person to me.”

Calming down a little, Serena spoke carefully. “Jason, I know we’ve talked about this before. You know that there are some people who might take advantage of the fact that you’re predisposed to take things at face value, yes? So you need to be a bit careful about who to trust, who you can believe? People who make a special effort to be nice to you don’t always have the best motives. Just - be a bit careful with Bernie, please? She’s only got that allotment because of nepotism, and I don’t think she’s the kind of person we want to spend time with.”

But her nephew was as stubborn as she was, and he dug his heels in firmly. “Actually Auntie Serena, she’s exactly the kind of person I want to spend time with. She knows lots about gardening, and she’s helping me monitor the soil acidity - she’s really good at chemistry, she knows loads more than I do. And she’s very kind. She talks to me, and she listens to me properly, which is more than you do sometimes.” Shocked, Serena tried to interject, but he hadn’t finished yet. “You don’t always listen properly. You’re not listening now. You’ve made up your mind that you don’t like her, but I do. She needed help with the allotment, just like we did, so we asked Celia and her Mum. She might have got it through nepotism, but that just means showing favour to people because you like them, and it comes from the Latin for nephew. You got me a job at the hospital because I’m your nephew. Does that mean I shouldn’t trust you?”

Starting to feel a little out of her depth, Serena softened. “No, of course not. But you know, all I did was encourage you to apply for the job - you got it yourself, on your own merit. I’d hate you to think you only got it because you’re my nephew.”

“But I wouldn’t have known about it if you hadn’t shown me the job advert - and you helped me fill in the form and prepare for the interview. How is that different from Bernie’s friend telling her about the DFV allotment?” There was that acronym again, thought Serena. She must get round to looking it up.

“I take your point about the interview, but that’s all well within the bounds of what’s acceptable in recruitment. I talk things through with someone who knows the job whenever I apply for something new - most people do if they’ve got any sense. What Bernie did is different. There’s a process to go through to get an allotment, and she didn’t follow it. That’s more like me letting you know in advance what the interview questions were going to be, and telling you the best answers - or more like if I’d just given you the job without even reading anyone else’s application. Oh, let’s not argue about it anymore, please.”

“All right - we’ll just have to agree to disagree,” Jason pronounced, and Serena didn’t know whether to be relieved or disappointed when he got up and went to his room, with a last look at his aunt that expressed sorrow rather than anger, and left Serena feeling decidedly uncomfortable. She thought back over her heated exchange with Bernie. Well, she had to admit that only she had been heated - Bernie hadn’t acted as though she knew she’d even done anything wrong! No, she just couldn’t see past the fact that the other woman had somehow beaten the system to do other people out of their place in the waiting list, and Serena couldn’t abide injustice. It was the principle of the thing. It was a shame, because she had rather liked her - and Jason had obviously taken to her as well. Her instincts were usually better than that, she thought. But once Serena Campbell had developed a grudge against someone, there was rarely, if ever, any chance of their redeeming themselves in her opinion, and the die was cast. Bernie whatever-her-name-was was a wrong’un, and that was that.

***

It was a while before Serena next saw Bernie at the allotments. It was evident that Bernie - or someone - had been working there, but that first meeting seemed to have been a fluke. Whatever the schedule of a middle aged colonial lady of leisure was, it didn’t overlap with the busy routine - _hah! routine!_ \- of the head of a busy hospital department. If Bernie had any sense, she’d be keeping out of Serena's way for a while. Indeed, it seemed that she was doing just that. A couple of weeks after the confrontation, as Serena left the site after an hour’s work with Celia, she glanced back, only to see Bernie emerging from her shed, leaning heavily on a spade.

“Goodness, she must have been in there the whole time we were working!” Serena muttered. “A coward as well as a cheat, then.”

Celia looked up at her with worried eyes. “That’s not what Jason says. He likes her. He says she’s very brave and she ought to have a medal.”

Serena snorted. “Yes, I know Jason’s her number one fan, but I’m afraid they don't give out medals for poor little rich girls who survive a divorce, however messy it is, more’s the pity.”

“Is she rich, then?” the girl asked.

“Well, if she's been living it up in Abu Dhabi or wherever, has divorced her husband and can afford not to work once she’s come back to Blighty, I think we can draw that conclusion, yes. Come on, hop in, I’ll run you home.”

After that, Serena made a point of surreptitiously checking to see whether the door of number thirteen’s shed was open whenever she went there. She kept an ear out for telltale noises - creaky floor, footsteps on the rough boards, the low chatter of a radio - and from time to time was certain that the blonde woman was taking refuge in the gaily painted little shed. Was she hiding from Serena? Surely not after several weeks had elapsed, unless she was really very conflict-averse. Serena, who thrived on conflict, had little time for that.

“All she need do is apologise for playing the system!” she told Tanni one morning, a little louder than she needed to, having noticed that the shed door was slightly ajar. “Or better still, offer to swap plots with someone who’s been waiting longer than her…” Tanni, who had been waiting almost as long as Serena for her plot to come up, was almost swayed by this suggestion, but by this time, she had had enough of Serena’s self-righteous allotment ethics.

“Serena, I’m not being funny, but don’t you think it's time to let it go?” she pleaded in a much lower voice than Serena had used. “It’s getting embarrassing! I can't look the poor woman in the eye! And I’d like Celia to be able to say hello to her without worrying that she’s going to get in trouble with you.”

Serena looked as puzzled as she was horrified. “With me? Why on earth would she be in trouble with me?”

“Because you act as though even breathing the same air as Bernie is an act of personal betrayal,” said Tanni, gaining confidence and warming to her topic. “Look, I know you don’t approve of how she got the allotment, but she seems nice enough, and from what you said, she didn’t know there was a waiting list, didn’t know she’d done anything wrong. Can’t you give her a break? I want us all to be able to enjoy ourselves down here and relax - and I can’t do that if I'm worrying about Celia getting upset.”

Genuinely chastened, Serena acquiesced. “I had no idea it was bothering her. Poor girl - of course she’s not in any trouble, and I’ll make sure she knows it.”

“Well, don’t make a big deal about it - maybe just let her see you smiling and saying hello to Bernie next time she’s here, hmm?”

“I suppose so,” Serena said reluctantly. “Oh, and I was so enjoying having a little harmless feud!”

“Harmless for you, maybe,” said Tanni shrewdly. “I don't think anyone else has been enjoying it, Bernie least of all. Well, let’s hope we can all -” She was interrupted by a splutter and a roar from the far end of the site, and they turned to see Robbie revving up a petrol-fuelled hedge trimmer, which he was inexplicably using to cut back his raspberry canes. “Oh, god - what’s he doing now?”

Over the past couple of months since the incident with the rotavator, Robbie seemed to have brought a different gadget or power tool along every time they had seen him, seldom the right tool for the job, but this was ridiculous even for him.

“Score?” Serena asked. They had taken to marking him for these extravagances on the gadget’s suitability for the task at hand; how appropriate the task was in the first place, and finally artistic presentation. The more ridiculous the tool and end result, the higher the score, so the runaway rotavator had scored six, one and ten respectively (the job had needed doing, but not with the pseudo-tractor he had used, and the artistic element could hardly have been bettered).

Tanni watched him thoughtfully. “I’d like to give him ten for stupidity, but I suppose it could have been a chain saw, so let’s say nine. He’s only a couple of months late, so I’m afraid I can’t award more than a three. Artistry… I like the way he’s managing to catch the canes on his sleeves - oh, and I think he’s drawn blood! So I’d say a solid seven. That gives a Twat Factor of nineteen. He’s going to kill them off, I think - he really ought to be pruning them pretty selectively with secateurs. Do you suppose he thinks they’re weeds?” For most of Robbie’s adventures in allotmenteering to date had involved weeding in one way or another.

True to Serena’s prediction, the weeds had swarmed and multiplied after their treatment at the start of the year, and the intervening months had seen his War on Weeds escalating to furious levels - she had worried about his blood pressure on occasion. They had watched intrigued as he brought along a succession of power tools armed with blades, prongs and teeth that would send an armed battalion into rapid retreat, but which had had no lasting effect on the brambles. Tanni had tried to help, assuring him that the only surefire way to keep on top of them was to dig out as much root as possible as soon as the shoots emerged, but he wouldn’t be told. “You haven’t heard about the Industrial Revolution, then?” he had smirked. “Why would I weed by hand when I’ve got one of these babies at my disposal?” And he had fired up his brand new Blaze Thunderpunch Turbo Combisystem Tiller - which looked for all the world like a medieval torture device, but petrol-powered - and proceeded to reduce his newly planted potatoes and the weeds around them into a sludgy mulch. Serena had left him to it, singing under her breath, “Talkin’ ‘bout a revolution, baby…” That had scored a combined total Twat Factor of twentythree.

They had managed to suppress their laughter over his latest mishap with the raspberries, and looked away quickly to make sure they didn’t antagonise Robbie any further than they had done already. Tanni nudged Serena with her elbow.

“Be nice to Bernie - but you can be as rude as you like to that one, though. Did Jason tell you about the other day?”

“No. What happened?”

“Celia was down here with Jason on Wednesday morning, and Jason was doing his usual PH testing, filling in his chart, and PC Twatty came past, caught his foot in the strap of Jason’s rucksack, gave poor Jason an earful - not Jason’s fault at all, of course, he wasn’t looking where he was going. Jason, as I understand it, was as polite as only Jason could be in those circumstances, but Robbie started in on him, a lot of nonsense about care in the community, called him Rain Man, that sort of nastiness. Celia told me about it afterwards.”

Serena’s eyes narrowed dangerously. “Right! That’s it. I’m going to sort him out once and for all.” She was practically rolling up her sleeves ready for a punch up, but Tanni laid a restraining hand on her arm.

“Don’t. I mean, do if you think it will make you feel better, but Jason dealt with it just fine. He’ll have had worse.”

“What do you mean, worse? Why didn’t he tell me about it?” Serena was as distressed by Jason’s silence as she was enraged by Robbie’s behaviour.

Tanni looked at her with a look of understanding, pity and weariness. “Our kids have both had a lifetime of people treating them like shit, Serena. Celia’s had to fend off more than her fair share of blows, and I imagine Jason will have had more - girls are meaner, but boys are more physical. As for name calling, it runs off Jason’s back, quite frankly. You know how literally he takes verbal exchanges - Rain Man won’t have bothered him. He knows about the film, he knows it’s not about him, he knows he’s not Dustin Hoffman, so why should someone else’s stupid mistake upset him? And he probably didn’t tell you about it because it didn’t occur to him that it was anything out of the ordinary - because for him, it wasn’t.”

Aghast, Serena slumped her shoulders, the fight gone out of her for now. “They really get that sort of treatment from people - all the time? What is _wrong_ with people? Well, even if Jason’s all right with it, I’m not. That bully’s got to be taught that it’s not okay to treat people like that. You stay here if you like, but I’m going to have a word.”

Tanni shook her head again. “No need. He’s already had the lecture - I doubt he’ll make that mistake again - not with our kids.”

“Lecture? Who from? Have you seen to him already, then?”

The other woman nodded her head towards the shed on number thirteen. “Your nemesis. Celia said that Bernie came storming out of her shed and handed him his bollocks on a plate. She really is all right, you know.”

Serena gazed with amazement first at Tanni, then at the shed. “Bernie did? _Stormed?_ I’ve never seen her move at anything quicker than a shuffle! I didn’t think she had any get up and go in her.” Tanni gave her a meaningful look, a silent reminder that she was to be nicer to Bernie now. “Oh, but it’s true, though! She lumbers about as if she had the weight of the world on her shoulders. But she really faced off with him? Well, well, well - who'd have thought it? She looks as though a breeze would blow her over - and she squared off with that Neanderthal? Good for her! How did he take it?”

“Celia didn’t really say - I think she must have got through to him, though - he apologised to Jason and offered him the use of his gadget of the day - don’t worry,” she added hastily, seeing Serena's eyes widen in apprehension, “he had the sense to say no.

“Thank goodness for that. Well, I must say I’m pleasantly surprised. I thought she was a bit spineless, to be honest - she didn't stand up to me, did she? Oh, I suppose I’ll have to thank her now,” she grumbled.

Steeling herself, she approached the shed and knocked lightly. After a brief pause, during which Serena heard a quiet grunt and a little rustling, Bernie came to the door. Serena couldn’t blame her for looking surprised and a little wary. She attempted a smile.

“Hello stranger!” She started brightly, as though they were the best of friends. “I understand you were something of a have-a-go-hero the other day and came to Jason’s rescue - I just wanted to say thank you.”

Bernie stared at her, and finally spoke in a gruff voice. “I’m not a hero, I just don’t like bullies very much.” She looked at Serena for a long moment, then turning away stiffly, closed the shed door deliberately behind her. Serena stood in shock for a moment, then stepped back and turned to Tanni, who was studiously reading the back of a seed packet and pretending she hadn’t heard the exchange.

“Tanni, I think I might head off now - I… I’d better go and… well, I’ll see you later.” Quickly gathering up her things, she walked quickly to her car and sat looking through the windscreen unseeingly for a while, before starting up and driving home, switching on the radio to avoid thinking.

***

By the time she arrived home, Serena had recovered her equilibrium a little. There had been no malice in Bernie’s unsettlingly clear gaze, but she was certain that the words had been meant for her as much as for Robbie: bullying was a strong word for her own behaviour, she thought, but she conceded that perhaps she had been a bit childish about things.

She went straight round to the back door, and leaving her muddy boots in the utility room, she went through to the kitchen. She could hear the murmur of voices from the living room, where Jason was evidently keeping Sue company while she dusted and polished. She wasn’t really eavesdropping, but couldn’t help tuning in when she heard her own name mentioned.

“Auntie Serena doesn’t talk about my granny very much. Why do you think that is?”

There was a brief pause, then she heard Sue say carefully, “I’m afraid she wasn’t always very nice to your auntie - I don't suppose she likes to remember that.”

“That’s because she had Alzheimer’s, though,” Jason protested, loyal to the grandmother he had never known.

“Well, yes. That’s true, up to a point - dementia’s a horrible disease, and its as hard for the sufferer’s family and friends as it is for the patient. It definitely didn’t bring out the kinder side of Adrienne, which was awful for your auntie. I don’t like to speak ill of the dead but even before she became ill, she was very hard on people, not least Serena. Nothing was ever good enough for her: Serena’s had such a successful career, but Adrienne only ever found fault in what she did, and she wouldn’t be told she was wrong or unreasonable. Once her mind was made up, that was it. I’m sorry to say it, but she always was a bit of a bully, truth be told.”

Serena leaned back against the kitchen counter, feeling slightly sick. She had been ready to punch Robbie’s lights out for bullying her nephew, but she could see now that she had been just as guilty herself in the way she had been treating Bernie. Remembering how small her mother had made her feel on occasion, she flushed with shame. Tanni was right: it was time to let it go and try to mend things with Bernie, if it wasn’t already too late.

 


	8. Green Shoots

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Serena finally makes her peace with Bernie, and their friendship starts to blossom. She even finds out why Bernie spends so much time in her shed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter marks the halfway point. Thank you so much for sticking with this story: we’re well into the growing season now, so things are starting to blossom...

Serena wasn’t able to get back to the allotment for a couple of weeks after the brief but effective dressing down she had received from Bernie. There had been a stomach bug going round at work, and there were strict rules in place about returning to work until two days after symptoms had stopped, so AAU was severely short-staffed. Serena had been working extra shifts, as well as spending hours working out rotas which kept staffing at safe levels. All of this alongside her other regular duties as Deputy CEO meant that by the time she left work she was simply too tired to do anything other than eat and fall into bed.

As the virus worked its way round - and quite literally through - her team, staffing levels gradually returned to normal, and with her CEO’s approval, Serena permitted herself the rare gift of four consecutive days off. She spent most of the first day in bed, recovering from the gruelling fortnight she had worked, but by mid-morning the following day, she was ready to face the world again, and a few hours at the allotment was just the thing to blow the cobwebs away. There was a stop she needed to make first, though.

Since they decided to make a go of the allotment, Serena, Tanni and their youngsters had been regular visitors at Coverdale garden centre, a little out of the way for Serena, but worth the journey. It was so much nicer than the big chain places, and they were definitely gardeners first, retailers second. The plants were so much better cared for, and there always seemed to be a member of staff going round with a hose, checking on the seedlings and shrubs to make sure they were well watered, had enough sunshine or shade according to their preference, and were not being eaten alive by aphids or other garden pests. She was beginning to know the staff by name, so frequent had her visits been, and she smiled cheerfully at George, a tall young man who looked as though he played rugby in his spare time.

“Hello Ms C,” he greeted her. She had asked him time and again to call her Serena, but he couldn’t quite bring himself to say it. She knew that he had a bit of a crush on her, and found it quietly amusing and rather sweet - he was never anything other than respectful, and he blushed so beautifully under his thatch of ginger-blond hair. He was probably a little younger than Jason, and she felt a little maternal towards him.

“George! Hello - I do wish you’d call me Serena, you know. How are things this morning - everything coming up roses?” Bless the boy, he even laughed at her jokes.

“Everything’s looking lovely and healthy - I’ve been round and picked off all the nasties already. What are you after today? We’ve got some asparagus crowns just in: they could go in about now if you’ve prepared your bed?” Inevitably, he flushed as he realised he’d talked about making beds to her, but she came to his rescue.

“I’d love to grow my own asparagus, but I don’t think we’ll tackle it this year. What else could we be putting in now?”

“Um, have you got room for rhubarb? Just give ’em lots of well rotted manure and they’ll be happy as Larry. And you can start any number of things off in your polytunnel now to give them a good headstart.” He started listing various herbs and vegetables, leading her over to the seed display, but she interrupted him.

“I think Tanni picked up quite a lot of seeds for the tunnel in the week - rhubarb sounds good though. Actually George, there was something else I wanted to ask about. I wanted to give a little something to my allotment neighbour, a little thank you present, I suppose. I was thinking of something in a little pot, so she can put it on her decking, perhaps. Any bright ideas?”

He scratched the back of his neck and gave it some thought. “Something for the allotment, do you mean? Or for home?”

“I’ve no idea what her garden’s like at home - or if she even has one, come to think of it. I was thinking of the allotment: she’s got a little seating area with a bench on a few square feet of decking - I thought something to brighten it up would be nice.”

“How about a rosemary bush? We’ve got a few different sizes, depending on how much you want to spend. Stays green all year round, nice little lilac flowers later in the year, smells lovely, and she can always plant it out if she wants to have a little herb garden?”

Serena clapped her hands together. “George, you’re a genius. That’s just the thing. Lead on - and show me where the rhubarb is, as well - I haven’t had rhubarb for years, and I know just the spot for it.”

Twenty minutes and a cup of coffee later, she loaded up the car with her purchases and headed off to Lovers Lane. As usual for a weekday lunchtime, it was fairly quiet, and for once there was no sign of Robbie, and she was glad to be spared the overpowering smell of petrol that usually trailed in his wake. She waved at Louise, who was sowing some early peas, and stopped to exchange a few words with her. Fascinated by the zigzag pattern of the peas in the shallow trench, she made a mental note to ask Tanni if she’d bought peas to sow - how lovely to have fresh peas, straight from the pod! Bracing herself, she made her way over to her own plot, lugging a large trug with her, three rhubarb crowns and a small rosemary plant sticking out of the top.

Seeing that the shed door was ajar, she decided to bite the bullet, and took the rosemary in its plain, unfussy terracotta pot over to number thirteen.

“Hello? Bernie?” She knocked lightly on the door, the pot tucked under her arm. There was a pause, just as before, then the creak and groan of the floor as Bernie came to the door. She stood there warily, leaning against the doorframe, hands shoved deep into her pockets, eying Serena with caution.

“Hi.”

“Hi. Hello. Yes, I said that already, didn’t I? I - I was at Coverdale’s just now - the garden centre, do you know it? - and I spotted this little beauty. I thought it might brighten up your little sitting room here. And I really did want to say thank you for what you did for Jason. People don’t usually do that, you know? They’re embarrassed by it, by him, and they look the other way - and you know the worst thing? He’s so _used_ to it. I talked to him after Tanni told me about it, and I think he would barely have remembered any of it if it weren’t for the fact that you intervened - that was the only thing that was out of the ordinary for him. So thank you.”

Serena’s hand found its way to the sleeve of Bernie’s warm jumper, and squeezed lightly. Bernie looked down at it, seemingly fascinated, then looked up at Serena, her expression softer than before.

“I’m sorry things are so hard for him. He’s a lovely young man, I can’t think how people fail to see that. I’m just glad I was there - I don’t think Robbie knew I was around - I gave him quite the shock. And he definitely wouldn’t have said a word if you’d been there - I know for a fact that you stand up against injustice.”

Serena wasn’t sure, but she thought there was just the tiniest hint of a twinkle in Bernie’s eye. “Yes, well, let’s draw a veil over that, shall we? Now, where shall we put this?” Forcing a smile and a brightness she somehow didn’t quite feel, she hefted the rosemary pot in her arms. “I hope it’s all right, by the way - do you like rosemary?”

“Oh, yes, I love it - thank you. What a lovely scent it’s got. Nice with a bit of roast lamb, too.” She shifted her weight onto one leg and swung round the doorframe to look over the seating area. “Why don’t we put it just next to the bench, just at this end? Then I can see it from the shed, and we’ll get the scent of it while we’re having coffee.”

So began an _entente cordiale_ between Serena and Bernie, and over the next few weeks, odd gifts of plant cuttings and seedlings were exchanged between plots thirteen and seventeen, and flasks of coffee shared on the little bench. Neither woman had referred back to their difficult beginning, for which Serena was very thankful, and Serena was starting to think of Bernie as a friend, much to her own amazement. How foolish she had been, to go in with all guns blazing, and how fortunate she was that they had recovered from that initial unpleasantness to find this comfortable companionship. Serena had shared with Bernie the story of her discovery, late in life, that she had had a sister who had died before she could meet her, and how Jason had come into her life and made a home there - much to her daughter’s initial resentment. In response to her probing, Bernie had given the sparest of details about her children, both still aloof in the aftermath of the divorce. She tended not to be very forthcoming about her own life in general, Serena had noticed, but her sense was that Bernie was simply a very private person, and she did her best to respect that need for privacy.

Eventually though, Serena asked the question that had been niggling at her for a while now. A beautiful mid April morning found them sharing their customary flask of coffee, and Bernie had brought along a bag of fresh chocolate pastries from home. She seemed in a particularly good mood this morning, more than usually open and talkative. She had emerged from her shed smiling and somehow looking more relaxed and free than Serena had seen her before.

“You look pleased with yourself! What have you been up to?”

Bernie smiled at her. “I finished something this morning that I’d been trying to do for an age - you know sometimes you just need to bite the bullet and do the damn thing before it will let you go?”

“Ah, yes I know that feeling. Admission statistics reports do it for me - I dread having to compile them every month, but once I get my head down and just charge at them, I find I feel so much better for having faced it and got it out of the way. What’s your bugbear, then?”

Bernie glanced briefly back at the shed, where the open door gave a glimpse of a straight backed chair, a folded blanket slung over the back.

“Aha! I feel we’re on the verge of solving a great mystery. So tell me, Bernie - what is it you get up to in that lovely little shed of yours? I think you spend more time in there than you do out here digging and whatnot. Come on - tell all.”

“I write,” she said simply. Serena waited, giving her time to expand, but true to form, Bernie seemed to think she had explained herself.

“I had no idea you were a writer!” Serena nudged her elbow, careful not to jog the coffee cup in Bernie’s hand. “What are you writing? Have you just worked out whodunnit? I don’t know why I assume it’s a crime novel - though you don’t seem like the bodice ripper kind of woman. Would I have come across any of your work, do you suppose?”

Bernie shook her head. “I’ve never really written anything with a narrative before - nothing like this - but no, Mills and Boon isn’t really my style. My therapist thought I should try and work through what happened by writing it out, try to examine things a bit more deeply than I seem to be able to when I talk about it.” She looked a little self-conscious at the admission, but not embarrassed. “It’s taken a bit of getting used to - it felt like the worst kind of homework when I started, but I’ve come to quite enjoy it now. I come down here to write because I seem to be able to think more clearly - I suppose it’s so far removed from it all - so green and peaceful, just the birdsong and the wind in the trees. And when I hit a dry patch, I come out here and weed, or water, or just sit here and listen to the birds, and by the time I get back to it, I’m ready to roll again.”

Serena was silent for a moment, unexpectedly affected by the wistful note in Bernie’s voice as she spoke about this peaceful oasis. “Well, I don’t know what I’d expected, but it wasn’t that. So I take it you’ve had a breakthrough this morning?”

“I suppose that’s what you’d call it, yes. I’d been putting off writing about that last day out there, before the explosion, and then, when it all happened, how disorienting it was, how strange to suddenly be back in England with no real idea how I’d got here… But I came down here early this morning - it was barely light - and I just made myself sit and write and write until it was all out there.”

Privately, Serena thought it all sounded a little over-dramatic - but then again, the ending of her own marriage had been little short of explosive, so perhaps she should cut Bernie some slack. “I’m glad it’s helping. I went through a spell in therapy too, quite a while back now, when I was studying in the States - it was _de rigueur_  over there and I’d had quite bad depression, but when I told my mother about it, she made the biggest fuss about it being self-indulgent wallowing. Now I know about Jason and his mother - my sister, Marjorie - I think she should have shut up and gone to therapy herself!” She took a moment to imagine Adrienne in therapy, and snorted. “Did you say you were here before dawn? It must have been freezing in there!”

Bernie smiled. “Go and have a look - it’s pretty cosy, actually. And I brought half a dozen hot water bottles with me - I’m not stupid!” Surprised but pleased to be invited into the shed, Serena raised her eyebrows in a querying look, just to be sure that it was ok, and receiving a reassuring nod, got to her feet and stepped inside.

The shed was as neatly turned out on the interior as it was outside. Rather than the bare shiplap boards she had expected, she saw that plasterboard had been nailed to the uprights and painted a light cream colour. It felt surprisingly warm, and she realised that the plasterboard was hiding a layer of insulation. Garden tools were hung neatly on hooks and nails near the door, but the far end was set up with a little desk. A few books were propped up at one end - she recognised a mindfulness book she had used herself and nodded approvingly - and a battery powered lantern hung from a hook above the desk. A thick notebook lay open, and she was careful not to look too closely, not wanting to abuse the trust that Bernie had shown her. In the corner underneath, she spotted a basket holding several thick fleecy blankets, and the discarded hot water bottles that Bernie had mentioned.

“What a lovely little workroom! I’m tempted to try something similar on ours - our shed’s not much more than a sentry box. I’m fed up of having to cart tools up here every time we come, and we’ve been meaning to get a decent shed for a while. I’m feeling positive inspired. I'm not sure I’d be able to keep it as tidy as you do, though.”

“Habit, I suppose - drummed into me at a formative age. Never really leaves you, that sort of thing.”

“That explains your immaculate allotment, then, I suppose,” Serena mused. “If I was a weed I wouldn't dare grow here! You’re lucky to have so much time to spend down here. Taking this on has made me start thinking how nice it would be to go part-time - though I can’t see that happen ending any time soon.”

“Believe me, I know how lucky I am,” Bernie returned. There was something so heartfelt about her response that Serena turned to look at her properly, catching a fleeting look of - she couldn’t quite say what - regret? Wistfulness? Or was it just relief, to be here in this peaceful place, far from whatever troubles had dogged her before she came home?

“It sounds as though writing has been a bit of an exorcism for you. What’s next, now that you’ve finished?”

Bernie laughed, a low, slightly bitter chuckle. “Oh, I haven’t finished. There’s so much more to get out - this was just a bit of a sticking point: I’m glad to have got past it, but there’s more where that came from, I’m afraid.”

“Well, as long as it’s helping. I’m glad to have discovered the Mystery of Shed Thirteen - I’d been quite intrigued by it, to tell the truth.”

Bernie glanced shyly at her through her long fringe. “I haven’t mentioned it to anyone else - it seemed a bit silly to start with, then when I got into it, it became something too intimate to talk about. It’s nice that someone knows now, though.”

Serena gave her another bump with her shoulder. “Your secret’s safe with me,” she stage whispered. “Do you think you’ll keep it up, the writing, after you’ve finished the therapy?”

“I haven’t thought that far ahead - and to be honest, I think I’ll always be in some sort of therapy or counselling. I wouldn’t have thought it a few years ago, but it’s been one of the best things I’ve ever done. It’s so out of character for me, and I sort of hate it - the talking part of it, I mean, but medicine doesn’t work unless it tastes foul, does it?”

“Oh, yes,” Serena agreed. “If it ain’t hurting, it ain’t working.”

 _Really_ , Serena thought, _a lifetime of therapy for a messy divorce and stand-offish children?_ It seemed like overkill and a half, but she had the sense to keep her thoughts to herself. Now that they had established a friendship, the last thing she wanted to do was to antagonise Bernie again. She had found that apart from what she saw as the other woman’s occasional tendency to wallow a little in her woes, she enjoyed Bernie’s company very much, and how nice it felt to have the friendship of an intelligent woman her own age, something she missed at work. Tanni was lovely, but she did sometimes feel the age gap more sharply than was comfortable. The younger woman was that bit stronger, more resilient when it came to the hard work of gardening, and Serena often found herself struggling on, trying not to be the first to suggest a break _every_ time. Bernie’s rest breaks were more frequent than her own, which set her mind at ease - she looked a lot fitter than Serena, but was almost fanatical about taking breaks, which was just fine with Serena.

Bernie hesitated, then asked, “And how’s your own, um… are you still in therapy?”

“It’s all right, you can call it depression, I’m not scared of it. Not any issue any more - or at the moment, I suppose I should say. I had a bit of a recurrence when my mother was ill, and after she died, but the good thing about therapy was that it gave me the tools to deal with it when it did come back. And I had wonderful colleagues to support me, too - have you met Raf and Fletch yet, over there?” She nodded towards their allotment.

“Oh, yes - they’ve been very friendly. They’re very cute together aren’t they? A really lovely couple.”

Serena burst out laughing. “Oh, goodness, don’t let them hear you say that! Everyone always assumes they’re a couple, but they’re as straight as the day is long. Just good friends - they live together out of convenience - well, convenience for Fletch: Raf just likes having them around.” She continued to chuckle at the thought of her friends and colleagues being a romantic couple, and didn’t notice Bernie’s incredulous look.

“You know them better than I do. But they are both lovely - I can see how you could rely on them when things are tough.”

“Oh yes, they’re smashing lads, both of them. My right hand men. I’m glad you’re getting to know them. I’ve been a bit worried about you shutting yourself away down here - do you get out much when you’re not here? Have you got friends in Holby?”

The pause was almost long enough to be awkward. “I haven’t had a lot of time to get out and meet people, really. If I’m not writing, I’m gardening, and if I’m not gardening, I’m at one sort of therapy or other. I’m hoping things will settle down soon and I can find out what normal means for me now.”

 _Oh Lord, how many kinds of therapy does one woman need?_ Serena thought. “Bernie, do you think… Look, therapy’s wonderful, it really is, but don’t you think you can have too much of a good thing? If you’re looking for things to do, I’m sure there are lots of groups you could join - what are you into? Crafty things? Singing? You could meet a few more people and get out there again, move on from it all, hmm?”

“You don’t need to worry about me, Serena, I’m doing all right. Things would have have to pretty desperate for them to be made better by my singing! And I’m not sure that I’m in the right place to be ‘getting out there’ just now. It will all come in time - or it might not, and that’s okay with me.” She drained her coffee cup and got to her feet, leaning heavily on the arm of the bench. “Time to get back to work, I think!”

Serena cast a worried glance at her, scared that she had overstepped the mark and offended her intensely private friend, but Bernie smiled reassuringly at her. “You’re very kind to worry about me, but you really don’t need to, you know. I’m tougher than I look.”

By the time Serena was ready to call it a day, they had shared several more rest breaks, and although they hadn’t returned to the relative intimacy of their earlier conversation, it really felt to Serena as though there was a new openness and easiness between them, and as she packed her things away, Bernie called over to her.

“Same time tomorrow?”

“Just try and stop me!”

Serena’s smile was matched by Bernie’s own, and she knew that she wasn’t the only one glad of this new friendship. How glad she was that she’d overcome her silly prejudice and forgiven Bernie for her mistake.


	9. The Worm In The Bud

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things are going swimmingly at the allotment, with the plants coming on as beautifully as Serena's new friendship with Bernie. All of a sudden though, Jason is preoccupied, Elinor is absent (again) and Serena finds her assumptions about Bernie's past challenged - and it turns out that not everything in the garden is coming up roses.

April drew on with warm sunshine and enough light, fresh rain to bring the allotment to life. The novice gardeners on plot seventeen watched with delight as their seeds put forth tiny green shoots which swelled and burst through the soil, putting out little leaves almost as they watched. There was something new to see every time they went along, and Jason had taken to bringing along a plant identification book to make sure they were only removing weeds, not their own young plants.

They had planted their first early potatoes on Good Friday as per Bob’s advice, and by the middle of the month they were coming through and forming little umbrella-like canopies of leaves. Taken with the idea of getting the potatoes to do the hard work of improving the soil and suppressing the worst of the weeds, Jason had researched varieties that would store well, and they had both second earlies and maincrop tubers ready to go in later as they cleared more of the weeds away. They had covered the cleared soil with the old carpet Raf had given them, and now it came off, having warmed the soil and cleared the way for all manner of things to go in. Jason was faintly disgusted with the beetroot and perpetual spinach that Serena and Tanni had both wanted to grow, but he and Celia were excited about the things they were bringing on in the polytunnel: their tomatoes, sweetcorn and cucumbers were under daily inspection for the first signs of life, and they were going to start some pumpkin seeds off to nurture in anticipation of Halloween. Jason explained that it was “a long game” with pumpkins.

 

The friendship between Bernie and Serena continued to thrive too, and Bernie was spending less time in the shed and more time out in the sunshine. She frequently joined the Four Allotmenteers for their picnic lunch, inviting them to join her in her little seating area, otherwise taking her chair over to where they sat on the ground. “Bit stiff,” she explained, when Serena teased her for being too posh to get a muddy backside. They quite often teased each other now, Serena had noticed, all the politeness and overcompensation for her earlier rudeness done away with. 

Despite Bernie’s insistence that she was happy with her own company, Serena continued to suggest various hobbies, voluntary work opportunities and part time jobs she had seen advertised, ranging from a literacy scheme in HMP Holby to re-housing ex-battery hens; from visiting elderly patients in nursing homes to working in one of the many charity shops studding the high street of their local suburb. 

“Part time volunteer required for tea-making duties at OAP’s day centre.”

“No.”

“Caretaker for church hall.”

“No!”

“Childminder for gifted toddler.” 

“Serena, _stop_ it!”

It had become something of a running joke, but there was still a genuine intent beneath it to draw the reserved woman out a little and help her build up her resilience.

Emotionally, she saw that Bernie was doing just that, as her increased sociability and her newly relaxed manner attested. Physically, though, she was looking frail. Serena thought that she had lost weight, not that she had had much going spare in the first place, and her face had been pale lately, despite the sunny spring days. Serena had taken to trying to feed her up, and brought wide necked flasks of soup and stew along to tempt her. Bernie claimed not to have much appetite, and worried about her friend, Serena read up on eating disorders, first in the medical literature, then, finding academic journal articles too dry and impersonal when it was a friend in question, she turned to the information leaflets they gave to patients and concerned family members. No diagnosis quite seemed to fit though, and she resolved to monitor the situation and to challenge Bernie if she lost any more weight.

For now, though, she just tried to be a good friend to Bernie. The more time they spent together, the more time she found she wanted to spend with her, and she always felt strangely disappointed on the rare occasions when she arrived to find the shed empty, and this Wednesday afternoon was no different. At one of her therapy sessions, no doubt. As she crossed the grassy path onto her own allotment, she glanced back regretfully at the shed. Really, how silly to feel so let down just because Bernie wasn’t there! She came here to garden, after all, not to chat.

 

After a good hour’s work of turning over the compacted ground for the next lot of spuds to go in, she took the well worn path to Bernie’s bench. She often used it as a place to rest now, whether Bernie was there or not - it felt like a shared space, and she knew that it made Bernie happy to know she used it. She took a long draft from her water bottle, dropping the lid beneath the bench in her eagerness to quench her thirst. As she reached down to pick it up, she noticed how many cigarette ends had accumulated around the foot of the bench. She hadn’t ever seen Bernie smoke, now she thought about it, but she had told her that she liked to have one now and again just because she could: her ex-husband had disapproved in what seemed like a very patriarchal way to Serena, and although the doctor in her couldn’t condone it, the feminist approved wholeheartedly. This little collection looked like more than one a day, though - and it looked as though Bernie had switched to roll-ups, and no filter tips, which wasn’t good. She would have a gentle word, if she could do it without sounding like the ex. Though she felt some relief, too - Bernie’s smoking habit went some way to explaining the suppressed appetite, so perhaps she didn’t need to worry on that score any more. She wondered when she had started worrying quite so much about Bernie, and was glad, not for the first time, that she and her gardening pals were able to come at different times, so that there was often someone around to keep Bernie company. Jason hadn’t been around quite so much of late - he had been up to something in his room, tapping away at his computer. Serena didn’t know what had caught his attention now - there was so often a new interest that consumed him that she found it difficult to keep up - but he was still taking responsibility for the seedlings in the polytunnel, so she had no real complaint.

 

The next day, Serena found herself at a loose end. Elinor had promised to come home from university for the weekend, but true to form, had cancelled at the last minute. Serena had barely bothered to listen to the excuse - it was probably a party, whatever Elinor said. Nights at the theatre, at debating clubs, helping a friend with an assignment - they had always turned out to be parties. 

She  had always been a bit of a good time girl, and Serena knew that she got that from her - well, from both her parents, if she was honest - but in her earlier youth, Elinor had taken things a little too far, and after an all too memorable visit to AAU with a friend who had overindulged on what the tabloids would surely have termed “a cocktail of street drugs,” Serena had taken measures to intervene in her daughter’s descent into a lifestyle which was already casting a long shadow across the young woman’s life. After her initial knee-jerk reaction of grounding the girl for the rest of her natural life, she had been able to approach the situation a little more constructively, and together they had gone to a youth drugs counsellor. Her brush with the emergency services, albeit in the person of her mother, had shaken Elinor severely, and she had displayed a genuine desire to change her path.

Now that she was away at university, studying to become a journalist, Elinor had rediscovered the joy of partying hard, and although Serena was as sure as she could be that she had not backslid into her teenage ways, she would always worry about her. Elinor had a personality that leaned towards the addictive: she came from a long line of very driven and ambitious women, and it had occurred to Serena lately that there was a fine line, an artificial distinction between her own drive, Elinor’s addictive urges and Jason’s special interests, as she had learned to describe them. What an odd and wonderful thing the human brain was! A loose connection here, short circuit there - one might mean devastation, another, genius. No wonder Guy Self, Holby’s star neurosurgeon, was such a complex character, spending his working life in the whorls and loops of other peoples brains.

 

Speaking of special interests, Jason was currently holed up in his room deep in whatever this latest one was. All she had heard for days was him tapping away furiously at his keyboard. She had thought initially that he was gaming, and had initiated a conversation about online security and personal safety, but Jason had brushed it off. “I’m working on a something private,” he had said cryptically. “I’m hardly online at all at the moment, I’m helping a friend with a project that’s very personal, and they would rather I didn’t discuss it with anyone else.” This had rung alarm bells with Serena, but after teasing out what she could, it seemed that he was typing something up for a friend who wasn't terribly confident with IT.  A friend from his stint at college, perhaps, Serena thought, and more confident now in Jason’s judgement than she had once been, and with a final reminder to let her know if there was anything in the task he was uncomfortable with, she left him to it.

 

A few scant months ago, an unexpectedly free day might have seen her at a loss for something meaningful to do other than catching up on professional reading. She might have gone shopping perhaps, or to go for a pampering session. Her first thought now, though, was always to put her wellingtons in the boot of the car along with the spade, fork and hoe which always lived there now, and to run down to Lovers Lane. Today, as a last minute thought struck her, she made a quick detour to the corner shop first. 

By a happy chance, Bernie was outside sitting on the bench when she arrived. Dropping her bundle of tools on the grass path, Serena went to join her. “Hello, you!” She greeted her cheerfully. “Hard at work, I see! How is the morning treating you?”

Bernie smiled at her, a small but warm upturn of her lips. “Bit stiff today, otherwise, mustn't grumble. I _have_ been hard at work, as a matter of fact. Written a thousand words or so - and look - I’ve put my runner beans in,” she said proudly. Serena had made such a beeline for the bench that she hadn’t noticed the sturdy latticework of poles stuck firmly in the ground and lashed together with twine.

“That looks professional - fancy doing ours next?” Serena perched next to her on the bench. “Actually, I’ve got a reward for you - well, just a little present. I hope you don’t mind.”

Bernie looked on, intrigued, as Serena rummaged in her bag. “They’re here somewhere, where can they have got to - ah! Here. Got them.”

She fished out a small packet triumphantly, brandishing it before Bernie with a nervous little grin.

“Now don’t be offended, but I saw your fag end collection the other day and  noticed that you’ve switched to roll ups. I’m not going to give you the lecture, but would you at least try using these?” She handed Bernie the pack of filter tips, folding the other woman’s fingers over the little bag as though she was afraid she might fling it away otherwise.

At the very mention of her smoking, Bernie had swiftly moved her foot over the little pile of cigarette ends, as though to hide them from view, and Serena wondered just how guilty she had been made to feel by her ex husband for indulging the habit.

Seeing that Bernie didn’t know how to respond, Serena pressed on. “I hope it’s not too presumptuous of me, and I’m sorry if I’m interfering, but - look, if you want to smoke, I’m not going to stop you - you’re a big girl, you know the risks, but I’ve unclogged too many arteries in my time to want to add yours to my CV. Obviously, I'm not thrilled about smoking, but if you’re going to do it, I’d rather you kept it as safe as possible. Will you at least try using these for me?”

Bernie looked at the bag of white filters in her hand and spoke hesitantly. “Marcus was always on at me to quit, you know. As if I didn’t feel guilty enough, he said he wanted ‘the mother of his children’ to be around to see them grow up. I’ve only ever been a very light smoker - yes, I know every one is a coffin nail - but you’d think from the way he went on that I was chain smoking Capstan Full Strength all day.”

Serena hooted. “Now there’s a brand name I haven’t heard in a while - my grandpa used to smoke them. Foul things!”

“Weren’t they just! My grandfather was strictly a Woodbines man.” She sighed, hefting the bag in her hand. “It would never have occurred to Marcus to suggest a compromise like this - it was all very black and white for him. Everything was. Is, I suppose. I'm afraid Charlotte’s inherited a bit of his world view in that regard.”

Her face clouded,  a defeated sadness creeping over her features. “I’m sorry,” Serena said. “I _have_ been a interfering old bag, haven't I? I shouldn’t have given you them - what a terrible busybody you must think me. Look, you smoke whatever you like, as long as it’s legal!”

Bernie grimaced and twisted her foot on the pile of dog ends on the floor, as if to grind them into the ground. “I will give up, really I will, just as soon as everything’s calmed down a bit. It just seems to take the edge off, you know?”

“Oh, I find a nice glass of Shiraz does that admirably! But if you really do want to quit, I’m sure I could put you in touch with someone, do it with a bit of help?”

“No offence, but more therapy’s the last thing I feel like doing at the moment. It’s very kind of you, though - all of it. Thank you. I’ll try using them - but I will try and cut down, too. Thank you, Serena, I mean it.”

Serena brushed it off, a little embarrassed at how her gift had brought uncomfortable issues to the surface for her friend. “Oh, really - it’s just 99p and a little telling-off, it’s not a big deal. Though if anyone deserves a ticking off, it’s not you, it’s that stuffy ex-husband of yours. What a hypocrite - judging your every little peccadillo while all the time he’s cheating on you with some other woman!”

Bernie looked up sharply at her, eyes wide. “Oh, but he didn’t! God knows I’ve been reminded of that fact enough times since I got home. Everything would be a darned sight easier if he had, to be honest. No, he was being the perfect husband and father holding the fort and the family together while I was off ‘gadding about in sunnier climes,’ as he put it.”

“Oh! I’m sorry, I just assumed… I mean, I think that’s what puts paid to most failed marriages, isn’t it? It certainly did for mine. Edward was putting it about all over the place while I was bringing up his daughter, taking knockbacks to my career, looking like an absolute fool to anyone who knew what he was up to - and pretty much everyone did. Well, I'm glad you were spared that humiliation, anyway. So, not an affair, then. Just general incompatibility, I suppose - irreconcilable differences?”

Bernie, who had shrunk into her seat as Serena spoke, looked at her feet miserably. “Oh, no - there was an affair all right. It was me that had it, though, not him.”

“You - you had an affair?” Serena’s voice was quiet, but carried a world of disappointment and accusation. “You were out there on your own? And he was here - with the kids - and you had an affair?”

Bernie nodded, a small, controlled movement. “I always thought it would be him, you know. Things weren’t great by the time I went out there for the last time - didn't know it was going to be the last time, of course, and he disapproved of my going away again - but then he always did. I think he knew he couldn't stop me going, so things like the smoking were little ways he _could_ try and control me - oh, he wasn’t coercive or abusive, nothing like that - more just - I don’t know, a bit old fashioned, I suppose. When we got married I think he assumed I’d put all that behind me and settle down, have kids, be the good little wife. To be honest, I wouldn't have chosen to have children myself - I knew it wasn’t a great idea while I was still touring, but he wanted them so badly. Now I wonder whether that wasn’t just another way to try and clip my wings.”

She fiddled with the pack of filters, turning it over and over in her fingers. Serena, stunned into silence, sat stiffly, feeling numb. Bernie continued.

“I wasn’t happy with him, but I wasn’t really unhappy, either.  But it was always something of a relief to get back out there by the time my leave was up. And then I met Alex. Everything out there was so intense and immediate, and you’d think things, do things you’d never dream of doing at home. But I resisted it for so long, I swear - I didn’t think I was that kind of woman at all, until one day we were out in the desert, and I just… Well, it turns out I _am_ that kind of woman, very much so, in fact. I wasn’t looking for it, I swear I wasn’t - and it would never have occurred to me to look for it _there_ even I had - but it was as though someone had suddenly turned the lights on, and I realised why things never _could_ be right with me and Marcus.”

Usually so taciturn, Bernie seemed not to be able to stop herself talking now that she had started.

“I’d planned to talk to Marcus, explain everything to him and ask for a divorce when I got home - I was due for leave, only had a few weeks to go, and I thought it would be - not easier, God, it could never have been easy - but _better_ to tell him face to face. I thought he deserved that. But then it was taken out of my hands, and before I knew it, I was back here, and Alex had come with with me, and out it all came. So here I am - messy divorce, my children don’t speak to me, the job I love has been taken away from me - all I do now is go to hour upon hour of therapy that doesn’t bloody work, and write the whole mess down.” She gave a bitter little laugh. “The odd cigarette doesn’t seem like the worst thing in the world, to be honest.”

Serena had drawn away from while she was speaking, and now she stood in one sudden movement, her eyes cold, and a hard set expression on her face.

“Honest? Since when have you been honest, Bernie? All this time, you let me think your divorce was Marcus’s fault. You knew about Edward, what he did, how it affected me, and you let me think you were the wronged woman, when all the time you’d been swanning around while he looked after your children - god, your _children_ , Bernie! - and you have the nerve to complain about _your_ freedom, _your_ career.”

She paused for breath, and Bernie, staggered by the outburst, cut in, “I never said it was Marcus -” but Serena hadn’t finished.

“I thought we were friends. I trusted you - I thought you trusted me!  Oh, how you must have been laughing at me, with my sad little tale of betrayal. Well guess what, Bernie, you took the same marriage vows that Edward took, and you treated them with the same contempt, and that makes you just the same as him. How _could_ you? Oh, go and smoke yourself to death for all I care!”

She strode off haughtily, ignoring Bernie as she called after her. She was thankful that someone had left the gate open, and that she didn’t have to clamber over the stile. She had suffered enough indignity for one day, she thought. How had a simple gift elicited this confession of betrayal? For that was how it felt: she had trusted Bernie with her friendship, and she had been repaid with lies and deceit. Well, not any more, thank you very much. She had been made a fool of once too often, and she wasn’t going to fall for it again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome to the section we shall call "The Chapters of Angst" - get your sturdiest gardening gloves, knee pads and other protective gear strapped on - you're going to need it!


	10. Smoking Out The Pests

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tanni persuades Serena to try and put past differences aside with Bernie, but when Serena goes to the allotment to extend the hand of friendship, what she discovers there proves to be the last straw, and she unleashes the full force of her fury as she finally tells Bernie some home truths - as she sees them.

Having learned of what she saw as Bernie’s crimes and misdemeanours, and having vented her spleen at the other woman in such certain terms, Serena found herself making every excuse possible to avoid going down to the allotment. She suddenly found it necessary to attend every meeting scheduled for AAU, the senior management team, and for pretty much every other department - “As an observer - you know I like to keep my ear to the ground, share best practice,” she explained brightly whenever her presence was questioned.

All of a sudden, she felt the urge to decorate her dining room - “Long overdue! Look at that dreary old wallpaper, Jason!” - and she spent a long weekend weeding through her wardrobe, discarding clothes which no longer fitted her or were looking a little tired. Then, of course, she needed to spend copious time shopping to replace the items she had thrown out. Goodness, how had she ever found time to keep an allotment?

Jason, wrapped up in whatever his latest project was (she still hadn’t fathomed out what he was doing, but he seemed content doing it) hadn’t been finding much time to go to the allotment lately either, and eventually Tanni pinned Serena down at home, scrubbing furiously at her kitchen windows - “This spring sunshine really shows up the grime, doesn’t it?”

Serena made a pot of coffee, and they sat at the little patio table outside the back door, facing the small courtyard garden. Serena had filled it with pots, and there was almost always something in flower or lush foliage.

“You’ve done this up beautifully,” Tanni complimented her. “You’ve obviously got green fingers… but I haven’t seen you down the allotments lately. I was wondering if, well - are you finding it a bit much now that things are picking up? I know there’s a lot to do, and I’m quite happy doing as much as I can down there, but if you didn’t want to carry on, I’d understand.”

“No, no - I don’t want to give it up - I just… well, I’ve been so busy at work and I really needed to eat some spring cleaning done here, and… I suppose it’s just dropped down my to-do list. I’m sorry, I know I haven’t been doing my fair share, and Jason’s up to his eyes in some all-consuming project or other. We’ll do better I promise.”

Tanni took a sip of her coffee and thought about how to phrase what she needed to say.

“The thing is, Serena, the allotment’s in your name. If you want to keep it on, Celia and I are more than happy to help. But if you think you won’t want to keep at it, that’s absolutely fine, but you should really let the council know and free it up for someone who can give it the time it needs. You know what the waiting list’s like.”

“Tanni, honestly, I do want to keep it on. I know you’ve been waiting almost as long as I have, and I get that you probably have mixed feelings about working on someone else’s plot when they’re not holding up their end of the bargain, but I hope you know it’s your allotment too, for as long as you want it.” She shuffled awkwardly on the cast iron chair. “The fact is, I’ve had a little bit of a _contretemps_ with our neighbour. It’s all a bit difficult - I mean, we had a sort of row - all her fault, of course - but it just makes it a bit awkward. Has she said anything?”

The younger woman frowned. “No, she hasn’t said anything to me - but then again, I haven’t seen her for a while. I can’t think when I last saw her - but of course, you never know if she’s there or not, do you? She tends to stay in her shed - I don't know what she gets up to in there, do you?”

Serena hesitated. She may have had her differences with Bernie, but she knew that she’d been entrusted with something that Bernie hadn’t talked about to anyone else. “She keeps herself to herself,” she hedged, “but she does tend to leave the door cracked open if she’s inside. Have you noticed the door being open?”

Scratching behind her ear, Tanni searched her memory. “I don’t think I could swear to it - it certainly hasn’t been wide open, but it might have been left ajar a couple of times. But I haven't seen her working outside, and she had been a bit more outdoorsy until quite recently. Goodness me, what on earth could you have had a row about that would have scared her off so badly?” There was no accusation in her tone, but rather a note of disbelief, perhaps that two middle-aged gardeners could have had a set-to that saw one of them too timid to come out of her shed, and the other staying shy of the allotment altogether.

“Irreconcilable differences,” Serena said darkly.

“Come on, you’ve got to give me more of a clue than that!”

Serena sighed. “I had it in my head that she divorced her husband because he cheated on her, but it turns out it was the other way round. She had an affair when she was out in Dubai or wherever it was - and he was back here looking after their children. It seemed a bit too close to home, really - shades of Edward, you know? I’m afraid I rather went for her. I - ah - I might have laid it on a bit thick, I suppose.”

“I see. And now you’re, what, embarrassed? Ashamed? Are you really going to let a spat stop you enjoying the best part of the growing season? I wish you could find a way to settle your differences with her: it’s such a shame for you both to be missing out on everything. And to be honest, it looks as though she’s as anxious as you about it - it might all have blown over by the time you see each other again, hmm?”

Serena didn’t know whether to be proud or ashamed of the fact that she seemed to have scared Bernie away from the allotments, but now that a few weeks had elapsed since their conversation (for even Serena couldn’t honestly call it a row - it took two to tango, and she hadn’t given Bernie a chance to retaliate), she remembered how she had worried about the allotment being Bernie’s only interest. She recalled how she had tried, unsuccessfully as far as she was aware, to get her to involve herself in more sociable activities, and as aggrieved as she still felt, she hated to think that she was responsible for taking away the one pleasure another human being had in life.

She sighed heavily. “Oh, it’s all a bit of a mess, isn’t it? I have missed going down and getting on with things, I’ll be honest. Do you think I should apologise? I still think she’s in the wrong, mind - but I suppose I could have reacted a bit more rationally. Oh, all right! I’ll try and make my peace with her. I don’t think we’ll be having any more chummy little picnics though, I’ll warn you.”

Mollified, Tanni took a tour of the small garden, admiring Serena’s handiwork and suggesting a few tweaks here and there where sun-loving plants had become overshadowed, or where a more pleasing arrangement might be managed. She left after a second cup of coffee, with an assurance from Serena that she would be back at the site before the week was out, and that she would try and coax Jason along as well.

Jason, when she approached him, was quite amenable to resuming his gardening duties. “I’ve finished helping my friend out now anyway,” he said, “and it will be nice to see more of Celia again. I’ve missed her - and the allotment, too.”

“Oh, Jason, you shouldn’t have put your friend before your time with Celia. I hope they haven’t been taking advantage of your good nature - I shall have something to say to them if they have.”

“I was happy to do it,” he said quite calmly, “and it’s been very interesting. It’s been mutually beneficial.”

She smiled at him. “Well, good. I was thinking I might try and go along to the allotment this afternoon if you fancy accompanying me? Only if you want, though - I know it’s not in your schedule for today. We can always draw up a new one for this week if you like?”

“That’s all right,” he responded. “I was going to go and see my friend to show them what I’ve done - I can do that first. Actually, I think I’ll go now if you don’t mind?”

Serena quickly made up a packed lunch for him while he changed into his gardening clothes, and promised to catch up with him a little later. She watched him stride off confidently, his satchel over his shoulder. What a transformation she had seen in the young man since they first met - and indeed, since they had been working together on the allotment. He was so much more confident, and she was so pleased with how well he had overcome some of his initial distaste for the grubbier aspects of gardening. And whatever he’d been doing for this friend of his seemed to have given him a sense of purpose and achievement, too. She wondered if she would ever know what he’d been doing, all those evenings and weekends tapping away at his computer.

She took her time over lunch, wanting to be in the right frame of mind for mending fences. Once her initial anger had blown itself out, she found that she had missed Bernie’s quiet but friendly company over these last few weeks. She couldn’t put her finger on it - after all, they had so little in common - but there was something about the blonde woman that Serena found so reassuring, so familiar, somehow. Whatever she’d been doing out in the Middle East may not have been cardiovascular surgery, but she was clearly an intelligent woman, and Serena appreciated her dry humour as much as her calming presence. Actually, come to think of it, what had she been doing in - where was it? - Dubai? Saudi? Had she even ever said specifically where she’d been? Serena had always assumed before that she was out there on her husband’s coat tails, but that very evidently hadn’t been the case. Once they had re-established friendly relations, she must ask her more about herself, get the full story. She’d been making too many assumptions about her, she could see that now.

Her lunch finished and the dishes stacked neatly in the dishwasher, Serena changed into her old jeans and a shirt that had seen better days, and hopped in the car. She parked up round the corner from Lovers Lane as usual, and made her way round to the gate. As she hopped over the stile, she caught a whiff of a fragrance that took her back to her student days. The sweet, sweaty scent of pot smoke always made her think of that second year at medical school, when she and a few of her peers had decided to work their way through as many banned substances as they could get their hands on - strictly in the name of medical advancement, of course. She herself had baulked at anything harder than a line or two of coke, which she hadn’t enjoyed at all, but she had made a good fat spliff part of her relaxation routine for the rest of her course. She hadn’t indulged for many years now, but what wouldn’t she give for the occasional toke after a particularly trying board meeting these days!

She glanced around, expecting to see a couple of sixth formers giggling over a badly rolled joint behind a shed, prepared to give them a wink and the promise of a blind eye, but no-one was around apart from Jason, who was sitting on Bernie’s bench.

“Hello! Taking a break? Good for you.” She moved over as though to join him. “Bernie not around this afternoon then?” She was disappointed - she had talked herself into an expansive, forgiving mood, and had been almost looking forward to making the magnanimous gesture of speaking to Bernie.

“Oh, she is - she’s inside. Bernie - Auntie Serena’s here!”

Serena arranged a gracious smile on her face. But even before he called her name, Bernie emerged from the shed, a long roll-up between her fingers, and the heady smell of marijuana intensified. Initially startled, she smiled shyly on seeing Serena, but the smile slid from Serena’s face, replaced by a frosty look that had become all too familiar to Bernie.

“What the hell is going on here? I thought I could smell it, but I rather assumed it was delinquent kids bunking off school - and now I find you practically dealing drugs to my nephew! I came down here today to build bridges, but you’ve burned them all now, you can be sure of that!”

Bernie closed her eyes, rubbing her forehead, and her voice was weary. “It’s just a joint, Serena - it’s hardly class A drugs. I’ve made sure to sit downwind of Jason.”

“Jason is a vulnerable young man and you have introduced him to illegal drugs! What next, kerb crawling with Celia?”

“Listen, Serena -”

“No, _you_ listen to me!” And like a dam bursting after heavy rainfall, every grudge Serena had ever borne towards Bernie came to fruition, every niggling little imperfection blown up to extreme proportions.

“I’ve a good mind to report you to the police for possession and dealing. That’s not ‘just a joint’ - it’s the fucking Camberwell Carrot! Do you know _nothing_ about the black economy, how much harm it does? You could do with a good hard spell of community service - it’s about time you tried to contribute something to society in some way, even though you’re too grand to lower yourself to paid work. Too good to sit on the ground like the rest of us poor commoners, even: god, we’re lucky you even deign to acknowledge us.”

“Serena -”

“You’re a grown woman, for god’s sake, and you hang around here, smoking dope with a young man who doesn’t know better than to trust you, and betraying _my_ trust like this - again! Seriously, get a sodding job! Better than navel gazing, writing your self-pitying misery memoir, slouching around the way you do - good god, did no-one ever teach you to stand up straight? You play the poor little rich girl, but whose fault is it that you’re on your own, hmm?”

“Serena, stop.”

“I will _not_ stop. I won’t be told to shut up by a woman who cheated on her husband while he was bringing up the children she’d _abandoned_ -”

“Serena! You need to stop this right now - Jason is distressed.”

Shocked into momentary silence by the uncharacteristically sharp tone of Bernie’s voice, Serena looked way from the door and back to the bench, where Jason was now hunched over, his hands covering his ears as he rocked back and forth, a stream of unintelligible sounds pouring from his mouth as he tried to block out Serena’s harsh words.

She rounded on Bernie. “I hope you’re satisfied!” She hissed. “Look what you’ve done! I’m taking him home now, and you’d better make yourself pretty scarce, Bernadette whatever-your-name-is, because I swear if I find you down here I won’t be held responsible for what I do.”

She stooped to Jason’s eye level and spoke gently to him, despite her rage. “It’s alright, Jason. Come along, we’re going home now. Let’s get you to the car.” She held out her hand for him to take, but he stood abruptly and pushed past her.

“I’m going to walk home. And when I get there I’m going to my room, and I don’t want to talk to you.” He walked unsteadily to the gate, hugging his arms around his stomach. Serena followed him, but rounded one more time on Bernie, who stood leaning heavily against the doorframe, her head sunk in one hand, the joint dangling loosely from the other.

“You’re not even using a bloody filter tip!”

***

Jason had refused to get in the car with her, and worried about him in his present state of mind, she drove slowly behind him, keeping him in sight but not so close that he would feel he was being followed. Once she had seen him let himself into he house, she drove on, thinking it best to leave him to calm down on his own for a bit. For all that she had blamed Bernie for upsetting him, she knew that it was her own reaction to Bernie’s behaviour that had triggered his meltdown.

She found a parking space near a café and ordered a chamomile tea, her jangled nerves needing to be soothed rather than stimulated. She picked up a discarded newspaper and stared at it, unseeingly. God, what was it about Bernie that pushed her buttons like this? Why did she flip so easily whenever she discovered something she didn’t like about her? She was angry, all right, angry at the thought of anyone leading Jason astray, but her anger was underscored by a deep and painful sense of disappointment.

That was odd. Why should she be so disappointed in someone she barely knew? Perhaps it was just that the allotment had become such an oasis of calm for her that it felt disproportionately unsettling to come into conflict there. She sighed as she finished her cup of tea. She had better go back to see how Jason was feeling - hopefully he had had long enough to calm down but not long enough to become anxious, as he sometimes did, that he was in trouble after one of these episodes. She really must find a way of containing her emotions around him - this wasn’t the first time by any means that her anger with someone else had proved a trigger for him.

When she arrived home, she saw with relief that Jason’s bedroom door was open, a sure sign that he was feeling safer now. She called out softly, “Hello, Jason? It’s me - I’m home. Are you all right?”

The door opened wider, and Jason appeared, his eyes red-rimmed, but otherwise he looked calm enough. “I’m all right,” he said cautiously. “Are you all right?”

She sighed. “Oh Jason. I’m all right, you’re all right, the world can go round.” It was something her mother had said to her when she was little, and she and Jason both found the repetition of it soothing. From his room she could hear a low rhythmic whirring from his room - his white noise app, perhaps, which he usually found calming, too. He came downstairs, and leaning forward, rested his forehead briefly against hers, which was as much physical contact as he was comfortable right now.

“I’m sorry I lost my temper, Jason. You know I wasn’t cross with you?”

“I know,” he said, in a matter of fact tone. “You weren’t cross with me, you were cross with Bernie. You’re always cross with Bernie.”

She laughed weakly. “Not _always_. But yes, I’m afraid I’m very cross with her at the moment. Did she offer her cigarette to you - has she ever done?”

He shook his head emphatically. “She said it was good for her at the moment but not for me. But I don’t think it _can_ be good for her - smoking’s always bad for you, isn’t it?”

“Yes, yes it is,” she replied, somewhat absently. “You’re quite sure she didn’t offer you anything? I won’t be cross with you if she did, even if you tried it.”

“She didn’t offer me anything to smoke or drink or any pills to take, and I’d know not to take them if she did, even though she’s my friend. I’m not stupid.”

“I know you’re not. You’re very bright, and you’re very sensible - much more sensible than I am, I sometimes think. I suppose I’m just a bit touchy about the whole subject of drugs - you know Elinor hasn’t always been as sensible as you, and she’s -”

“Neurotypical?” he supplied helpfully.

“I was going to say, a bit more worldly than you, but yes, there’s that as well. I still feel terrible about that awful girl who got you into trouble before - I suppose I think I should have seen what she was up to and protected you from her - and that makes me a bit over-protective now.”

“I understand.” Jason was so very reasonable, she thought - much more so than his cousin. “Auntie Serena, why _do_ you get so cross with Bernie?”

“Oh, I don’t _know_ \- that’s the silly thing. I sort of think she’s capable of much more than she lets herself do or think - why’s she wasting her time and her talents like this? It’s just frustrating. I want to think the best of her, but she makes it so hard.”

Jason looked at her, a curiously fidgety look, his gaze slipping from her face to the stairs. There was a sudden clunking sound from his room as the whirring stopped, and this seemed to make his mind up for him. He suddenly side-stepped decisively around Serena, and marched up the stairs. A moment later he came down again, a thick stack of paper in his hand. He thrust it at her, and she took it reflexively, glancing down at what looked like the title page of a book.

 _Leaving It All Behind_  
Berenice G. Wolfe

“I think you should read this.”


	11. Move Into Sunlight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jason explains how he comes to have Bernie’s memoirs: “Her name’s Berenice Griselda Wolfe and she’s my friend.” The truth abut Bernie’s past begins to emerge as Serena reads her journal, and with each fresh revelation she realises how very wrong she has been.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is chiefly Serena’s story, but Bernie finally gets to have her say, even if she has to write a book to be heard.

  
“What's this?” Serena looked from the appear in her hand to Jason and back again. “What - Jason, what on earth is this?”

He frowned, puzzled at her slowness. Auntie Serena was usually quite quick on the uptake. “It’s my project, it’s what I’ve been working on.”

Serena shook her head, bewildered. “You said you were helping out a friend - I don’t understand.”

“I was. This is what I was doing - I was typing it up for her.”

“Jason, Berenice Wolfe is a trauma surgeon - one of the best there is. I’ve based AAU trauma procedures on some of her work. You can’t have met her - unless she’s visited the hospital - but why would no-one have told me? What on earth is going on?”

“I told, you, I’ve been typing it up for her. She can’t type very well at the moment, she’s still in recovery.”

“Recovery? From what? Oh, look never mind that. We’ll get to the bottom of this later. What’s this got to do with - oh.” For something had just clicked into place. “Are you telling me that Bernie… No! She can’t be. Her name’s Bernadette, for a start. And she’s not a doctor, she’s a - oh I don’t know what she is.” She was looking wild eyed by now, nothing made sense to her, and she shoved the paper back into his hands. Jason remained steadfastly matter of fact.

“Her name’s not Bernadette but people always think it is, that’s why she works under her full name. She says Bernadette’s the only name she hates more than Berenice. Her name is Berenice Griselda Wolfe, and she’s my friend. She’s been writing about everything that’s happened to her, and she asked me to type it up when I told her I’d done the course at college. She said you knew about it, that you were the only other person who knew - and I think you should read it now.”

He pushed the sheaf of paper gently towards her again, nudging until she grasped it with both hands, in something of a daze. She barely registered Jason leaving the house, and she found herself in the kitchen without really having been aware of moving. She put the pile of paper on the kitchen table, and squared it up neatly, eyed it warily as though it might move of its own accord. She put the kettle on, made herself a large pot of coffee and sat down at the table.

The first page was in the form of a letter, perhaps to Bernie’s therapist, though it wasn't addressed.

_This is as rough a draft as I have ever written - I have just poured everything out, as you suggested. I'm used to writing much more concisely for publication, and this feels like a terrible mess to me, but I have resisted the urge to edit. It goes very much against the grain, but then the whole exercise is as far out of character as it is possible for me to be, I think._

_You also suggested I give it a title, something that I feel sums up what I’ve been experiencing. Again, I am much more used to something purely descriptive - perhaps something along the lines of “An evidence based account of the results of the repeated failure on the part of the author to learn from experience and tell the truth” - but I have done as you asked. It seems to me that I have spent my whole life trying to leave things behind - my parents, my own family, and now my career and everything that happened in Afghanistan. I have been trying to leave it all behind - so as fanciful and sentimental as it feels to me, there is your title._

_I hope it makes sense. I don’t think it does._

_Bernie_

Afghanistan?

Serena pushed the coffee pot to one side and reached behind her, where a bottle of Shiraz sat on the side. This called for the big guns.

***

She read with incredulity as the woman she had dismissed as a rich bitch from Dubai emerged as a doctor, a soldier, a leader - as someone she didn’t recognise at all. She knew B. G. Wolfe by reputation, of course: anyone working in emergency medicine would be familiar with her pioneering work on battlefield triage, and had implemented some of her recommendations in AAU, as she had told Jason.

She read with a kind of detached clinical fascination the detailed account of Bernie’s medical training, the well written accounts of procedures carried out in military hospitals, first at home in training centres in the UK, then out on active service: in Bosnia, in shell-ravaged civilian hospitals; in Afghanistan in temporary military accommodation, and on later tours, in jerry-rigged tents that sounded like something from M*A*S*H, only less sophisticated. She charted with candour her army career and her rise to the rank of Major, her love of medicine and her expertise in trauma surgery shining through, the writer clearly far more comfortable recording this kind of history than the more personal details about the stilted relationship with her parents, the shame that she evidently bore when she wrote about her husband, Marcus, and their two children, whom she had left behind time and again to serve her country and her comrades.

Bernie had left a clear blank page between recounting her military career and the section where she began to examine in detail her marriage and its dissatisfactions. Jason had dutifully typed “This page left blank intentionally,” and Serena smiled over what she imagined as his confusion and concern over this anomaly. She supposed this was was part of the leaving behind that Bernie had spoken about in her introduction.

She only now started to feel uncomfortable reading, and she stopped to make herself a fresh pot of coffee. By this point she was alternating between Shiraz, Arabica and ice cold water, too engrossed to do anything but read and sip, read and sip. All abuzz from the caffeine, she returned to the manuscript, feeling as though she should be reading from behind her fingers. There was nothing inappropriate, nothing that made her resent Bernie for imposing this task upon Jason, but there was a kind of dreariness to the way she described the sheer dutifulness of marrying Marcus and bearing the children he had wanted so badly. That she loved Cameron and Charlotte, there was no doubt - she had been overwhelmed and astonished by her love for them, but she was painfully frank about the fact that she had never intended or wanted to have children, and that she had allowed Marcus to change the path she had chosen for herself. Serena, whose career had been stymied at times by her own husband, felt a pang of sympathy and a flare of anger.

It was hard to read details of the many partings between the young mother and her children; the twin pulls of family and service, and it was evident that for Bernie, the army had been as much her family as had her husband and children, and Marcus’s inability or reluctance to understand this fact had caused her tremendous unhappiness. Were Bernie to meet up with colleagues while on leave, he would remind her that it was “our time now, they get more than enough of you as it is.” God, how stifling it sounded! It was difficult to imagine the Bernie she knew in this smothering family environment, so independent and content in her own company as she was now - though Serena had to remind herself that she really hadn’t known Bernie at all, had she? Every word she read showed her more clearly how very wrong she had been about the assumptions she had made.  
  
Through a sort of fog, she was dimly aware of Jason moving around her: the click of the lights being turned on - that was better - the soft ping of the microwave, and then a bowl of soup was pushed in front of her. “You’d better eat something if you're going to stay up and read it all night. I’m sorry, I’m not very good at cooking, but I found this in the fridge.”

She nodded, barely taking her eyes from the page, and thanked him automatically. She pushed her spoon round the bowl, eating the thick soup without paying attention, surprised when she found she had finished. She put the bowl aside and gave her full attention to the manuscript. Here was another page left blank: evidently a new chapter in Bernie’s life was about to begin.

_I didn’t know it as I boarded the transport, but it was to be my last tour of duty. Back to Helmand, where whatever was going on politically or in military terms, we were doing good work in the RAMC. I do still believe that, and I’ll defend our work there until my dying breath. We patched up and sent home our own soldiers, treated both our Afghan allies and the insurgents who came into our care as though they were our own, but it was the work with civilians that really made the job worth doing, and that I will always think of as my legacy. Land mines, shelling, gunfire, and beatings - and far worse - all affecting people trying to live their lives despite the chaos that centuries of colonial intervention and religious schism has brought down upon them. I still don’t know whether we did any good in Afghanistan by our involvement, but once we were there, I firmly believe that we were duty bound to stay, both as peace keepers and as medics, to try and aid recovery._

_I thought I’d found my purpose, that I’d be doing this work for the rest of my active career - well, I suppose that’s exactly what happened, but I thought there would be another ten years before I would have to stop. I had the best team, the most reliable comrades, every one of them as fine a soldier as they were a medic. We had worked together as a team for several years, those of us on that tour. The only new member of the team was Captain Dawson, the anaesthetist, after Captain Edwards retired the year before. Dawson was a great addition, very experienced, but full of energy and fire for the work. We worked well together. Edwards was a good gasman, and I’d never had any complaints about his work, but Dawson showed a flair and sensitivity that made me realise that it could be as nuanced and creative a job as my own._

_We became good friends - close, even. We were a good team in theatre, and often thrown together outside, too. We both found ourselves wanting to spend more time together, and less and less time with the rest of the team. We didn’t plan it that way at all, it just sort of evolved. We’d be talking in mess about surgery, or strategy, or team dynamics - or about home, or - anything, really, and we’d eventually notice that everyone else had wandered off, and there we were alone, and still no sign of tiring or running out of conversation. We took to going on patrol together, and it was around this time, I suppose that ‘Alex’ took the place of ‘Captain Dawson.’ I didn’t even notice myself doing it - and I became just plain old ‘Bernie.’ I suppose it made things easier, taking rank out of the equation._

_It was on patrol one night that things shifted between us - or rather, just after. We had handed over to Fuller and Wilcox, but we were both still wired - we’d been in a fairly gruelling surgery before patrol, and I think there was still a good deal of adrenaline knocking around. We liberated a bottle of whisky, and told the guys that we were going to take a walk beyond the compound. God knows how far we walked that night. We talked and talked, about everything and nothing, and eventually we realised how far from base we were. I don’t know what devil got into us, but we called in to command and said we’d come across a local who’d broken his leg and were taking him to the nearest civilian medical centre: we’d find accommodation there and make our way back in the morning. I’d never played hooky in my entire career, and here I was, Major Wolfe, giggling in the background as Alex detailed the injuries of an entirely imaginary Afghan to command. We’d have been in a world trouble if we’d got caught, but it just seemed like an enormous laugh._

_We found a house - a shack, really, in the middle of nowhere, the roof half caved in and clearly abandoned, and we holed up with our whisky, taking it in turns to swig from the bottle. We were both a bit drunk, I suppose, and reaching the sentimental stage of the bottle and the evening. I said how very glad I was to have Dawson on my team. I heard a murmur, “Oh god, I hope you are on my team,” and then - and then..._

_I know you’ll have noticed how very careful I’ve been, writing about Alex, just as I was telling this story in our sessions. Even though you know what’s coming, it still takes me by surprise even now, more than a year later._

_And then she kissed me._

  
Serena sat bolt upright, her wine spilling over the top of her glass onto the kitchen table. She. Bernie had written “she”. She read back rapidly over the preceding paragraphs, looking for proof that it was a typo, and realised just how careful Bernie had been in the telling of this part of her story: at no point had she used a pronoun.

Alex was a woman.

Bernie had had an affair with Alex.

Bernie had had an affair with a woman.

She thought back to the day that Bernie had told her about her divorce, and suddenly remembered something Bernie had said. “Oh, god, that's what she meant by not thinking she was that sort of woman,” she said aloud to the empty room. She stood abruptly and moved to the sink, running cold water over her hands and splashing it onto her face. She pressed the hand towel to her eyes for a long moment, as though blocking out the light could block out the thoughts going round and round in her mind.

I _hadn’t seen it coming. I hadn’t wished for it or known that it was something I could ever want, but the moment her lips touched mine, I thought, of course! Of course this is what’s been missing. Because I never felt anything like that with Marcus, or with any other partner before him. I’d been faithful for our whole marriage, enjoyed our friendship and our partnership until I somehow just didn’t enjoy it any more. I knew that that’s what happens with marriages, had seen it with my parents, with so many friends - I didn’t think there was anything unusual in our lapsing back into a friendship that was growing cooler by the day. And I knew, of course, that I was what they call a woman of a certain age - that things weren’t going to be quite the way they were when I was younger - but I had felt this coolness for such a long time that I don’t think it can have been that._

Serena shifted uncomfortably. How much detail was there going to be? Had Bernie thought about what she was asking Jason to type? And how much of it had he understood?

_It was just a kiss, but it changed everything for me. She pulled back after just a moment, and I looked at her, and I didn’t know what to say, what to do, and so I just - kissed her back, again and again. When I came to my senses, I pushed her away, told her I was married, told her I wasn’t gay, but then she looked at me - didn’t say a word, just looked at me, sad and serious, and I knew I was lying. I hadn’t known it, but all at once I knew it as surely as I knew I was alive. And just as suddenly, I knew that it was over with Marcus. Can you imagine that, your whole life changing in a moment? Not just your present and your future, but your past - everything you’ve ever believed about yourself, as you realise you’ve lied to yourself for your whole life._

_We kissed, and talked, and kissed and talked - the whole night, that’s all we did. It was like being a teenager again - better than being a teenager. I knew now what I wanted and needed, and it was Alex. Or at least, it wasn’t Marcus, it wasn't men. That’s all I could think about - and how had I not known before? It just didn’t seem possible, and it still doesn’t - but it’s true. I’d never had the least inkling that I might be gay. I’d never had the slightest interest in women, or any one woman, before Alex, but over the next few days as I thought about things, I felt the shift in the way I looked at the world, at other people, and I realised. It wasn't just that I wanted Alex, that I didn’t want Marcus. I couldn’t un-realise this new truth about myself: I was - I am - gay._

_Oh, the hours that I’ve spent agonising over that one little word since then! I’m not scared of it any more, but I was for a long time. After that night, drunk on whisky and kisses, we walked back to the compound. It took us three hours to get there, give or take, and we spent the time getting our story straight - the civilian with the broken leg - which leg, what kind of fracture? - how we’d carried him between us - stretcher or over my shoulder? - which village we’d stopped at, where we’d slept. Once the sun had come up, that’s all we talked about. What had happened between us felt different in daylight, and I wouldn’t talk about it. She wanted to talk, wanted to tell me how long she’d spent thinking about it beforehand, how she’d known for certain that I was gay, and how wrong-footed she’d been when I’d talked about a husband and children waiting at home, but after the night, when I felt so carefree and unburdened, I felt that lightness slip away from me._

_When we got back, hearts in our mouths and re-confirming our story one last time before we radioed to say we were approaching, it was a relief to find that I was called straight into theatre. Alex wasn’t needed - the patient was already under, but the surgeon on call was struggling to control multiple bleeds, and he needed another pair of hands and a more experienced eye. I was running on fumes by now, but we got it under control, and I left him to finish and close up. I scrubbed out and had a quick breakfast, then I made my way back to my quarters and crashed out. I avoided Alex for as long as I could, pulled rank to put some distance between us, and suddenly she was Captain Dawson again. I took her to task when she called me Bernie, and I actually heard myself bark out “You will address me as Major Wolfe, Captain!” like some stiff old warhorse from a black and white film. She didn’t step out of line again after that, but I felt her eyes on me all the time - those steady grey eyes that had gazed into mine the moment before she had kissed me._

_However firmly I pushed her away from me, I couldn't forget that kiss - those kisses. No matter how much I told myself it was a drunken aberration, I knew that it wasn’t. It was all I could think about - the way it had felt, how different it was to the kisses I shared with Marcus, and how much I wanted it to happen again. A few days later, it did. We were scrubbing out after a tough few hours which had ended in the worst possible way. The man we’d spent hours putting back together, saving limbs that he’d seemed certain to lose, arrested on the table as we were laughing and joking about what a close shave this one had been, and we lost him. He was a good lad - too young to die, as every one of them is. We were pretty much broken by it - we had known him, and liked him, and failed him, and now we were sending him home in a box._

_I’d already been through the wringer with everything that had happened with Alex, and after everyone else had left theatre, I just sat on the floor, my head in my hands. This was the one thing I was really, really good at, and I had lost him, as we were making jokes about it. I was thinking - and I must have said out loud - you lost him because you were arrogant and cocksure - and the next thing I knew, Alex was there, kneeling in front of me, telling me it hadn’t been my fault, that I was the most fearless, fantastic surgeon in the RAMC - and I didn’t stop to think, I just leaned in and kissed her as though she was the only thing in the world that could stop me falling apart. I was lost in her, and then we heard something outside - I don’t know what - a truck revving up, a shout - and I scrambled to my feet and ran._

_I tried so hard to give her the cold shoulder again - I was her senior officer, I was married, I was straight - so many reasons to shut this down and stay away from her, but I couldn’t - I just couldn’t. And we were stuck in this awful cycle that we couldn’t seem to break. The more heated things got between us, the harder I pushed back against it, against her, until one day I gave her the most almighty dressing down for some minor infraction - totally disproportionate - and she snapped. I can’t even remember what I said that pushed her buttons, but suddenly she drew her hand back, and I caught her wrist just before she could slap me. Raising your hand to a senior officer is a pretty big deal, though I’d certainly asked for it, and I saw red. I marched her off towards the MP’s tent, but as she halted and waited for the order to enter, I just shoved her in the back, told her to keep moving, and then we were at my quarters. I pushed her inside, and told her to hit me if she wanted to, if she dared to. This time, I wasn’t going to hold anything back, and I -_

Serena turned the page, a hand to her throat, and didn’t know whether to be relieved or disappointed to see the bold text:

**Bernie has torn some pages out and says she will type these up herself even though her typing isn’t very good. I am starting at a new paragraph on the next page.**

She decided on the whole that she was relieved.

 


	12. Full Sunlight May Scorch

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Serena reads the rest of Bernie's journal, and finally understands how mistaken she has been. She reads about the end of an affair, the end of a career, and the end of a marriage - and she reads about herself.

It was late by now. Jason had long since gone to bed, and Serena had finished the bottle of wine. Had it been a full one? She couldn’t remember. She hadn’t kept track of time, and it felt as though she had been in Afghanistan with Bernie while she read. It was strange to look around her and see her own kitchen, the empty soup bowl still on the table next to the stack of paper. She had placed each sheet neatly to the side as she read, and saw that she was only half way through. She was tempted to read on into the night - she was glad to see that Bernie had censored herself in consideration of Jason’s sensibilities, though there was clearly so much more that she had needed to write about - but sense won out, and she put the bowl in the dishwasher, and took the manuscript upstairs with her. Even though it was only herself and Jason in the house, it didn’t seem right to leave it lying around.

She put the two piles on paper on her dresser: the read and the unread, and even with the lights out, she could see the shape of them in the dark room. It took her a long time to get to sleep.

 

The next morning she woke feeling restless and fidgety. She had a precious day off and had nothing planned, but something niggled at her as she came to full consciousness. She looked at her bedside clock: it was early still - much earlier than she needed to get up. She thought perhaps she had had a dream that had left her unsettled, some imagined task that her brain thought she had left unfinished, but as she stretched and turned her head to the side, she saw the two lots of paper and took a sharp breath in. It all came back to her in a rush: Bernie was none other than Berenice Wolfe, trauma surgeon and army major, and the affair that had ended her marriage was with a woman. She eyed the pages across the room warily. What else was she going to discover? She wasn’t sure she wanted to know any more.

A quick trip to the bathroom later, she found herself unable to resist the temptation. She made a pot of coffee, wincing at the heap of grounds in the compost caddy from the previous evening, and returned to bed, taking the manuscript with her.

She read through the last page from last night again. It was clear why Bernie had removed the subsequent pages, and Serena flushed at the mental image of Bernie in uniform, grasping another woman by the wrist, pushing her into a tent and - god, this was _Bernie_ she was thinking about - it still didn’t seem possible. She read the brief statement of Jason’s, about Bernie’s poor typing, several times to calm herself, and moved on to the next page.

It was apparent that the encounter in Bernie’s quarters had left no doubt in her mind that her marriage was well and truly over, and she described briefly how her relationship with Alex had continued, against regulations and against her better judgment. She was evidently still struggling with it, and had blown hot and cold with the poor woman (as Serena had started to think of Alex), until one day Alex had presented herself to Major Wolfe.

 

_She told me in a clipped, formal tone that she had applied for a transfer back to the UK, where she would be taking responsibility for training junior medics, and that the application had been approved - she would be shipping out the next day. It came as a blow to me, as unexpected as the first kiss we had shared in the run down shack that night. I told her that I didn't want her to go - I must have sounded so desperate. Her expression softened, and I thought she had changed her mind, but she looked at me and said, “That’s what you don’t want. You need time and space to figure out what you do want. Come and find me when you’ve sorted your life out,” and she saluted smartly, and left._

_By the time I'd recovered myself and gone to find her in the barracks, she was already packing. There were other people around, and she made sure to keep it that way, and all I could do was to ask if she was determined to make this move - would she not reconsider? She said her mind was made up, and she was sure this was the right thing to do. I could see that I wasn’t going to change her mind, and a part of me knew that it was for the best, but I couldn’t bear to leave it like that. When she turned out in the morning, I was ready and waiting for her. I was expecting a new anaesthetist on the flight that was due to take her home, and I told her that I would drive her to the airstrip, ready to meet the new chap. She knew what I was doing, could see how distressed I still was, and I could see that she wanted to refuse, but I hadn’t given her any room to negotiate. She accepted, but she insisted on driving._

_We hardly spoke on the journey. It wasn’t an easy drive, and it wasn’t an easy goodbye to make. I remember there was some small talk about her new posting, and who she would be working with that I might know. We didn’t talk about what had passed between us, or about whether I would go back to Marcus - nothing like that. Anyone listening to us might have thought we were colleagues who didn’t know each other very well, making conversation to while away a tiresome journey. I think we were a little over half way when I said very quietly, “I’ll miss you, Alex.” She didn’t reply - just nodded - and kept her eyes firmly on the road. I'm glad I remember this one little detail, because it means I’ve never blamed her for what happened next._

_I don’t know how she knew what was about to happen, if she saw it, or felt something shift under the wheels, but she suddenly said “Shit!” and swerved off the road. I was aware of her pushing me down, trying to cover me with her own body, and then, as clichéd as it sounds, I don’t remember anything else until I was airborne. I thought the pulse of the helicopter rotor was my own heartbeat, and I couldn’t work out the odd rhythm. I don’t remember any pain, not until much later - to this day I don’t know if that was shock or drugs - they shot me up pretty well when they found us._

_They told me as I gradually made sense of what was going on that we’d hit a massive IED, that Alex had done amazingly well to ensure that we sustained as little damage as we did. That was relative - it turned out to mean that the vehicle was completely destroyed, and I was only alive because I’d been thrown clear - a long way clear. I think I blacked out again then, because the next thing I remember is being disembarked and loaded onto a personnel carrier._

 

Her hands shaking, Serena put down the page. Bernie had been blown up? Jesus Christ. She had known that there was more to come, but this was so shocking, so far removed from anything she had imagined. Of course she knew that it was a dangerous place, even though she as far as she knew, medics probably didn't engage in actual fighting - did they? - but the thought of Bernie being thrown from a vehicle by a device that was there with the sole intention of taking a life… She closed her eyes and took several deep breaths before she resumed reading.

She read on, staggered to discover that Bernie had been evacuated to Holby City hospital, of all places. “She was in my hospital and she never thought to tell me?!” And then she remembered that she _had_ told her - she remembered her exact words now: “Been there, done that, lost my t-shirt.” Well, yes, if she’d come straight from the wreckage of a jeep five thousand miles away, the t-shirt had probably bitten the dust. Serena laughed a little hysterically, and wondered if she had overdone it on the coffee. 

Going back to the text, she made a mental note to have very strong words with her colleagues, none of whom had thought to inform her that Berenice Wolfe had benefitted from their hospitality. _Why didn’t we offer her a job on the spot?_ Even in a purely consultative capacity, she felt sure that they could have achieved great things together. She was still having trouble reconciling her Bernie - allotment Bernie - with the woman emerging from the pages, and with the great Berenice Wolfe. They seemed like three different women who kept merging and separating in her minds eye. It was all very confusing.

She shook her head, and determined to retain her focus, she picked up the story where she had left it - a floor or two above her own bloody ward. There was still a good inch and a half of paper left to read - what on earth else was there to come? At least it must all be up hill from here - things surely couldn’t have got any worse for Bernie after being blown up.

 

An hour later, and Serena vowed never to make such a foolish assertion again. For Bernie, having discovered her true sexuality, been left by her lover, blown up and landed in the hands of Guy Self, had arrested, been hacked about by Ollie Valentine (she would thank him when she had got her head round it all), and had been spitefully outed to her own husband, leading to what Serena had already known was a very unpleasant divorce. With difficulty, she read how Bernie’s children, poisoned by a heartbroken and resentful Marcus, had turned against her, giving evidence in the family court that she had been a neglectful mother. Her own divorce hadn’t been much fun, and Elinor wasn’t all sweetness and light about having her self-centred world turned upside down, but she couldn’t imagine even her selfish daughter making a sworn statement about her failings.

She thought with regret how she had accused Bernie of being just like Edward. She could see now that Bernie’s affair had been so very different from  any of Edward’s dalliances. She had read in Bernie’s own words how profoundly difficult it had been for her to deal with the consequences of the discovery of her attraction to women: how reluctant she had been to face up to it and act upon it, and how she had intended to do the right thing by Marcus and tell him how things had changed for her, only for fate to intervene in the awful way it had.

Ploughing on, she read about Bernie’s convalescence, spent not at home with her family, but on her own, in what sounded like a perfectly miserable flat in St Ursula’s, an area she knew to be considerably less desirable than her own suburb. There were accounts of numerous therapy sessions - oh, how she had poured scorn on what she thought was self-pitying new age nonsense - she had accused Bernie of navel gazing, for goodness sake - and she realised that when Bernie had spoken calmly of therapy, it had been an umbrella term for physiotherapy for her leg, her back, her left hand; occupational therapy to ensure she was safe and competent to live alone; CBT sessions with a therapist specialising in the effects of post traumatic stress disorder… and so it went on.

Now she began to put together all the little hints and clues that had been available to her - her, a clinician who ought to recognise the impact of trauma injuries - the leaning on objects and against the doorframe for support, the difficulty in maintaining posture which she had written of as slouching, the frequent rest breaks she had teased Bernie for. They had all been coping mechanisms for pain and reduced mobility, for atrophied muscles, for what sounded terribly like partial - and hopefully temporary - paralysis, now that she had a bit of history to go on. For a fit and active woman, such a diagnosis was devastating. And for a surgeon - it was unthinkable. Unable to stand for any length of time in theatre, her dexterity compromised: it was potentially career ending. For a surgeon of Bernie’s caliber, it was a terrible blow not just to Bernie herself, but to the profession and to the field of emergency medicine in particular. Serena was staggered. Bernie had never given any hint of the turmoil she must surely be going through. She had never even given an indication that she had been injured, other than by the way she held herself - and she had been careful to minimise even that giveaway. In this memoir, though, she pulled no punches, and wrote starkly of the pain she had been in since leaving hospital.

Bernie’s writing had been engaging thus far: although she had said that she had never written in this style before, it was clear that she was confident with the written word, and self reflective enough to write intelligently and honestly. Although it was, as she had warned, a very rough draft, there had been some attempts build a narrative thread from the start. Now, though, the writing began to take on a more immediate tone, lapsing almost into diary entries. She wrote with the cool dispassionate eye of a clinician, and with the brutal unflinching honesty of a career soldier. The diagnosis Serena had started to make became more and more certain as Bernie charted the progress of her physiotherapy - god, it sounded absolutely brutal - and recorded the details of the pain she was in, from her injuries and from the surgery. Valentine was good, and he could probably have done Bernie’s surgery with his eyes closed. But all the same, it was major surgery, and no small matter to have your chest cracked open and someone else's hands thrust inside your chest. 

She thought back to the loss of appetite that Bernie had complained of - no, she corrected herself - Bernie had never once complained about any of this. She remembered her pale, drawn features, and belatedly recognised the manifestations of chronic pain. She knew that personally, she would take any quantity of medication to deal with that sort of pain, but Bernie had resisted all but the most modest pain relief. She wrote of a clear mind being more valuable to her than a pain-free body as she worked through her other issues, and she knew well enough the side effects of the harsh drugs that would have dulled the pain. Instead she had endured, had adopted other ways of managing her pain: Serena thought back to that little row of books on meditation and mindfulness - and then Bernie described a conversation she had had with a former colleague one evening. 

She didn’t name him, for reasons that quickly became apparent, but a former army colleague of hers had demobbed with PTSD, and had gone feral in Glastonbury, had gone through a series of alternative therapies and treatments, exploring different spiritual paths, toying with shamanism before settling on a form of what he termed agnostic paganism, and supported himself through what Bernie described as ethical production and distribution of marijuana. In practice, it seemed, this meant that he farmed the stuff in a a strictly controlled one-man operation so he knew that quality couldn’t be compromised, and used a bartering system that meant he wasn’t selling, as such, but exchanging grass for goods and services (still strictly illegal, of course) and providing his wares only to people he knew and trusted, and whose requirements were medical rather than recreational. His patrons included people living with cancer, multiple sclerosis - and chronic pain. Serena herself had looked into the therapeutic benefits of marijuana when her beloved young colleague Arthur Digby had been so poorly with his chemotherapy.

She thought back with horror to the rant she had unleashed on Bernie when she caught her smoking the spliff. She had accused Bernie of contributing nothing to society, of shoring up the black economy, of needing a spell of community service - good god, if getting blown up on active duty in Afghanistan wasn’t community service, then what was, she thought hysterically.

 

Feeling a need to move, to shake off the unsettling feeling of having been so very wrong, Serena put aside her reading for a while, and took a long hot shower. She felt some of her agitation subsiding as the water coursed down over her shoulders, washing her anxiety way. Christ, she could do with a spliff herself. Oh, what a godawful _hypocrite_ she had been. Taking the remaining wad of paper downstairs, she made herself a proper breakfast. She couldn’t survive on coffee and wine forever, however tempting the thought was. Feeling stronger and more settled for having some decent food inside her, she made herself comfortable at the kitchen table again and braced herself for one last push.

The same colleague who had provided Bernie with the marijuana had recommended she take up gardening. He had given her the name of another former colleague, one Jo Carrington, an ex-RAMC nurse. She too had been invalided out of the service, and having found solace and recovery in gardening had set up a charity for service men and women, similar to the land share project that matched gardeners without gardens to people who had gardens but were unable to tend them. Jo, who evidently  had a dry sense of humour, had partnered with Holby City Council’s allotment department and registered the charity under the name Dig For Victory. Serena groaned. DFV - not the Department For Vegetables, obviously, but Dig For Victory. What else would you call a scheme for marrying up service personnel with allotments?

Bernie wrote so warmly of discovering the joy of gardening. In consideration of her injuries, Jo had arranged for the plot to be thoroughly dug over before she took it on, and raised beds built so that she didn't strain her back unduly. This, then, was the help that Bernie had received in “jumping the queue” to get the much envied plot thirteen: not, as Serena had implied, by sleeping with someone at the council (oh, god, what was _wrong_ with her? Why did she say these things?), but through a scheme to help rehabilitate injured and traumatised soldiers. Shit. Shit, shit, shit.

And here it was, the part she had been dreading. She had rather hoped that Bernie’s account of her experiences would finish before their meeting, but no such luck. And oh joy, there were still, by her judgement, several thousand words to go. Here, in unrelenting black and white, were her own words. The first overtures of friendship, and the cruel unfounded accusations she had flung at a bewildered Bernie. It was told in a typically matter of fact style, with the mildest speculation on Bernie's part of what might have sparked her diatribe. She had discussed the matter with Jo, who had reassured her that she hadn’t done anything wrong by accepting the allotment, had explained how she had applied for lottery funding and put her scheme to the council who had approved wholeheartedly, gifting the next available three plots to Dig For Victory, including plot thirteen at Lovers Lane.

Gritting her teeth, she read on, expecting to read the worst about herself, but the next episode she recognised was the incident she had only heard about third hand from Tanni, where Robbie had treated Jason so badly. Where Bernie had recorded just the facts about her first unfortunate meeting with Serena, she had not censored herself regarding Robbie, and she read with grim satisfaction the account of Bernie swooping down upon him like Vengeance. She had seen enough bullying in the army, she wrote, to last her a lifetime. She’d made it her personal mission to weed out bullies in her regiment, and she wasn’t going to stand for it here, either.  If Serena had needed any reason to admire Bernie further, here it was - but she didn’t think she could hold her in any higher regard than she did already, now that she had got to know her through her own words.

Alongside the ongoing account of Bernie’s treatment and recovery there now came a thread of what Bernie evidently considered a kind of recovery in itself: she wrote warmly and affectionately of the growing friendship blooming between herself and Serena.

 _We might not have got off on quite the right foot,_ she wrote _, but we seem to have forgiven each other. Serena has been making every effort to be friendly and to put things right, and I appreciate it so very much. It’s really rather lovely to be making a new friend outside the service, and I think she seems as lonely in her own way as I have been. She was very sweet - after I’d given her the brush-off about the Robbie thing, she gave me a bit of space (can’t say I blame her, I didn’t really cut her any slack), then showed up one morning with a really thoughtful gift. I’m still not sure if she knows my history, but she couldn’t have chosen a more apt gift than rosemary for remembrance._

Well, that was a happy accident. _Well done George_ , thought Serena.

_I get the impression that she’s been starved of friendship - real friendship, not just workplace friendliness. It seems to be doing her the world of good to just talk to someone about her family, which sounds pretty complicated in its own way, about work life balance (god knows I never got that one right) and - oh, just anything and everything. And she’s been good for me, too. I never thought I'd tell anyone outside therapy, but I’ve told her about this writing exercise. She described it as a sort of exorcism, which I think is a good description. I even showed her the shed - my little haven in the crazy mess my life has become lately._

 

Serena read on with unabashed pleasure as Bernie wrote of their friendship growing and deepening, forgetting for the time that this was all very much in the past. She came to the last few pages with a sense of regret: she was sure that Bernie’s story wasn’t over yet. The very last page was another letter to the un-named therapist.

_You asked me to write about the last twelve months: I’ve done that, and more. I hope it was all right to include the quick biography at the start - it seemed odd just to plunge in somewhere in the middle of things. As much as I resisted it at first, and as much as I hated doing it when I started, it’s been more helpful than I ever imagined. If I could have cut it all out with a scalpel six months ago I’d gladly have done it: this has been infinitely more painful, but infinitely more healthy._

_It’s been such a a terrible year in so many ways - the end of my career, the end of my marriage - but it’s brought me some wonderful things, too. I know who I am now, and that’s a huge thing. I don’t think Alex and I could ever have worked out, but I’m glad it happened now, just sorry for the hurt it caused everyone. I’ve discovered the very unexpected delight I find in gardening, and even more surprising, the relief and joy I’ve found in writing._

_And as difficult as it has been at times (I think she’s more explosive than any IED) I’ve found a wonderful friend in Serena. She’s kept me laughing when I was in so much pain, and she’s shown me so many little kindnesses. There’s really nothing that beats coming down to the allotment, scratching at the ground for a bit, writing for a bit, then sitting back with a flask of coffee and a good friend. And there’s even a tiny part of me that dares hope for more. She seems as lonely as I have been, but when we’re together, there's a sort of rightness that I’ve never really felt before, and she makes me feel that I’m not the cold-hearted, emotionless disaster that Marcus convinced me I’d become._

_This has been all about laying the past to rest, but spending time at the allotment, and with Serena, has made me believe at last that I might have a future worth writing about, too._

_BGW_

 

Serena turned this last page over, placing it neatly on the top of the pile. She stared at the wooden surface of the kitchen table, then slowly brought her forehead down upon it with a thud - once, twice, three times. 

What a fucking idiot she had been.


	13. The Clear Light Of Day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Determined not to rush into an encounter with Bernie while she is still in turmoil over what she has read, Serena turns to a friend for advice. She gains more insight than she had expected.

“Okay, Campbell. Let’s get this straight. Bernie Wolfe is one of the finest trauma surgeons ever to grace a theatre. She’s also a war hero - or at least a respected officer in Her Majesty’s Armed Forces. After years of an unsatisfying marriage she’s discovered her true self - and then almost immediately been blown to bits by a roadside explosive. She can’t operate any more, her husband and lover have both left her, her children don’t speak to her and she’s in constant pain. She’s living in a shitty part of town, coping with brutal therapy on her own, and has one real pleasure in life - the allotment you accused her of gazumping - and one decent friendship, that you have now blown. Well done. Well done me.”

Her first instinct had been to run all the way to Lovers Lane, to find Bernie and tell her that she understood everything now, that she’d made a terrible mistake - a long sequence of terrible mistakes, in fact - and to throw herself at Bernie’s feet, asking for forgiveness. Thankfully, she stopped to think about it first. She had been up until late last night, was probably still wired from all the coffee she had drunk, and she had read Bernie’s very personal account of the last traumatic year of her life without (she had to assume) her knowledge or permission. She had better check with Jason exactly what Bernie had said when she asked him to type it up: she had told him that Serena knew she was writing it, but had she said it would be all right for her to read it?

And she knew, too, that she herself was still feeling quite on edge and volatile. She couldn’t predict how she might react to seeing Bernie, to hearing anything she might have to say regarding their last two conversations - well, her own rants, about the affair and the smoking. The last thing she wanted to do was to lash out again if Bernie were to tell her some home truths about her bullying ways, as she surely must do. She needed to calm down, to put a little distance between herself and the situation, and then to talk to someone.

She picked up the manuscript and took it upstairs, putting it safely in a drawer in her bedroom. It seemed too incendiary now to leave it even on the dresser. She texted Jason to tell him that she had read it and put it away out of sight: she wanted him to know that she was treating Bernie’s work with respect ( _not that you’ve treated her with much_ , she thought glumly to herself). Next, she picked up her gym bag and drove to the leisure centre, where she spent the best part of an hour ploughing up and down the pool, allowing herself to get lost in the rhythm of her own swimming. There was something about being underwater that gave her a sense of dissociation that was hugely soothing.

After she had towelled off and got changed, she sat in the café and took out her phone.

“Raf, hello - it’s me. Are you working today? Oh, good - do you think we could meet for lunch? You haven’t got plans, have you?”

***

Regardless of whether or not he’d had plans, Raf could hear the tension in Serena’s voice, and agreed to meet her at a trendy little restaurant they both liked in the centre of town. Serena was already there when he arrived, shredding the corner of her napkin methodically. He pressed a hand on her shoulder in greeting as he sat down opposite her.

“Serena. What’s the occasion?”

“No occasion - can’t I call a friend up for lunch now and again?”

“You can always call me up for lunch - but something’s up, I can tell. Get yourself a glass of wine and tell me all about it, hey?”

But Serena didn’t want to drink today. She needed to keep her mind as clear as she could - it had been jumbled and jangling for longer than she could remember.

“I don’t know where to start - everything’s such a mess.” She leaned forward and looked at him earnestly. “Raf - tell me the truth. Am I a horrible person?”

He laughed incredulously. “Serena, no! Of course you’re not! What’s brought this on?”

“I think I must be, though - I keep saying the most awful things, I keep lashing out at people who don't deserve it. Someone pointed out to me a while ago that I was being a bully - and they were right. Why am I like this?”

“Hey, hey - who’s been getting at you? Who do you think you’ve been bullying? You’re a wee bit harsh on young Jasmine from time to time, but she kind of needs a bit of kick up the backside sometimes. And all right, you can blow your top now and again, but that’s just human nature. And you’ve had a rough couple of years with your Mum and everything, and I know Elinor hasn't exactly been supportive - all that stress is bound to come out somehow, eh?”

She sighed. “So I have been awful. I knew it.”

“No, no - that’s not what I mean. You’re just a bit - hasty, sometimes, you know? Jump to conclusions, look for the worst in people. It feels as though you expect the world to kick you in the shins, so you kick it first. Does that make sense?”

“God, I asked you to tell the truth, Raf, not to give me a complete character assassination,” she grumbled, but she was smiling. “Thank you for being honest. I think I probably needed to hear that - and it’s nothing I didn’t already suspect. So what do I do about it?”

He blew out a heavy breath, relieved that he hadn’t offended his friend and colleague. “Well, I suppose the fact that you’ve become aware of it as a problem is the first step. Do you think it might help to talk to someone about it - professionally, I mean?”

“Therapy? There would be a certain irony in that, I have to admit - I’m afraid I’ve been rather hard on someone who I thought was wallowing by going to therapy, but they’re in a better mental state than I am by all accounts. I’ve done it before, you know - therapy?”

He smiled kindly at her. “I know. So you know it works, or at least that it helps. You could do worse than try a spot of CBT - focus on challenging unhelpful thoughts? Or do you think you might specifically need anger management therapy?”

She looked at him, eyes wide. “Anger management? That makes me sound like a woman deranged! CBT sounds like a good place to start, though. Thank you for taking it seriously, Raf. I know it’s hard to talk about stuff like this - you could have just brushed it off, and you didn’t - so thank you.”

He winked at her. “It’s in my interests, boss - I’m not immune to your tongue lashings either - remember the time you sent me to my room for insubordination?”

She guffawed - she had indeed barked at him to “Go to your room” when she had meant to tell him to go to her office, and she was pretty sure she would never be allowed to forget the incident.

“All right, all right. I’ll do better, I’ll change, I promise.” She caught the eye of a lurking waitress and they ordered food, and, sticking to her vow she asked for a glass of sparkling water.

“Do you think people _can_ change late in life?” She asked, more relaxed now that she had got the difficult bit out of the way.

“Sure - of course they can. I mean, I know they say the leopard doesn’t change its spots and all that, but we’re not leopards, are we? We’re complicated, messed up human beings - we make mistakes, but we can put them right, too. You and me, Serena, we see people’s lives change every day. People lose a loved one? Changes their lives. Lose a limb? Changes their lives. Survive a heart attack - that changes your life, too. The things we see, that we get used to and blasé about, they're huge for most people. They’d be huge if they happened to us - like poor old Arthur.”

She hummed in sad agreement, and clinked her glass against his in a silent toast to their colleague who had died a few months before from an aggressive cancer that the best efforts of his colleagues hadn't been able to stem.

“Okay. Different scenario. Not the big physical stuff - death and disaster - but just something unexpected. You know, you think you’ve been one thing all your life, and you suddenly find you were wrong. Like - like - oh, I don’t know, discovering you were adopted and you’re really someone else? Or - look. I’ve got this friend. They were married, but had a vision on the road to Damascus, as it were, the scales fell from their eyes and they discovered they were gay all along. How is that even possible?”

Raf shifted uncomfortably. “A friend?” He asked uncertainly “Well - yes, of course it’s possible - these things just sort of happen sometimes, don’t they?” He coughed and took a swig of his beer.

“I mean, I’m trying to understand, you know - it’s not judgement at all - but how can you be one thing one minute, and completely the opposite the next? How could she not have seen it? How could she not have known it earlier?”

“She?” He sounded surprised. This wasn’t where he thought this had been going.

“Damn!” She said. “I was trying to keep it anonymous. Yes, a friend of mine, married for twenty five years, children, the works - then one kiss from a woman and suddenly that’s all out of the window. Why - who did you think I was talking about?”

“Well - me, of course.”

She stared blankly at him. “You? Why would I be talking about you?” She was puzzled by this diversion from the conversation.

“Because - well, because you’re talking about a friend discovering their sexuality wasn’t what they thought later in life. I thought you were trying to tell me that you know - about me and Fletch.”

“You and Fletch.” she repeated, stupidly. “You and Fletch - what about you and Fletch?”

“What do you think? I thought you knew anyway? Did you really not?”

Serena had put down her glass and was staring at him as though he had casually announced that he’d been made Archbishop of Timbuktu. “Rafaello di Lucca, are you trying to tell me that you and Fletch are together? As in, together? Together, together?”

“Yes!” His laugh was half amusement, half frustration. “I honestly thought you knew. We’ve been together for ages now, we just never made an announcement, and - well, it just seems a bit late to make a big deal about it now.”

“But… but Raf, this is -” he swallowed, fearful of what he was about to hear. Impossible? Preposterous? Disgusting?

“This is fabulous!” She nearly knocked the table over as she jumped up and hugged him tightly. “I’m so, so happy for you! But honestly, why didn’t you tell me sooner?”

He sighed sheepishly, hugging her in return. “Thanks, Serena. It means a lot that you’re okay with it.”

“Okay with it? Why on earth would I not be?” She was almost hurt by the implication that she might not have been accepting.

“Oh, I don’t know - I knew you’d be all right, but lots of people aren’t, you know. It’s amazing how many folk think your personal life is any of their business, particularly when there are kids involved.”

“Oh, Raf - how could anyone object to those four kids having two loving parents again? Oh, tell me everything! How did you get together? Did you really have no inkling that you might be gay - oh - are you gay? Or bi? Because I have to confess, I thought that you and Essie were an item?”

He shook his head. “We were only ever just good friends - I wish she’d hurry up and get back together with Sacha, they’re so right for each other - but there’s some baggage they need to sort out first. Ah, they’ll get there. Anyway, it was Essie showed me how I felt about Fletch. We’d been living together, me and Fletch and the kids, and it all felt so comfortable and right, and then he started talking about moving out, and it just made me miserable, and I couldn’t work out why. Essie just said, like it was the simplest thing in the world, ‘Well, you’re in love with him, aren’t you?’ - and that was that, because I realised she was right - I’d been in love with him for the longest time. It turned out he’d realised the same thing, but he knew about Amy and Cara, knew I was straight - well, shows what he knows! Anyway, he thought he couldn’t stay with me and not be with me, but Essie kind of opened both our eyes for us and got us together. To be honest, I don’t know how people don’t see it - I suppose that’s what people mean when they talk about heteronormativity - folk see what they expect to see, and that went for me too, even though we were living together and bringing up the kids together.”

Serena’s eyes were shining. “Maybe it takes the right person to make you realise who you really are - like a kind of mirror.”

“Aye, I think that’s right. We owe Essie big time. So - about your friend - yes, I can get how she’d have that kind of realisation. Is she struggling with it?”

She saw his concerned look, the knowing quirk of his eyebrow, and hastened to correct him. “It’s not me!” she blurted out. “I know how that sounds, but it really isn’t - it’s a friend who’s had a really rough time lately, and it just made me wonder. I don’t know what I thought, really. I just - well, I’ve been so quick to judge her about other things, and I’ve been wrong every time. I’m trying my best to understand her better.”

“Is this to do with your anger management issues?” She nodded. “Well, I’m sure if she’s a real friend, she’ll understand and forgive you - just tell her how you’re trying to change, and make sure she knows how sorry you are. Always works when I fly off the handle at Fletch!”

Serena hoped to goodness that he was right, and that Bernie would give her the opportunity to apologise. She had every reason to give Serena the cold shoulder for good now. She needed to come up with a plan to demonstrate that she was a better person than she’d shown herself to be so far.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A Valentines Day update for those of us who still cling to Flaf <3


	14. Pruning Back Hard

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Finally feeling ready to face Bernie and try to mend the damage she’s done to their friendship, Serena returns to the allotment. Back at Holby City, she makes improvements to the ward inspired by reading Bernie’s journal. This work does not go unnoticed, and a unique opportunity comes her way as a result.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You might have realised by now that the basic premise of this story is that Bernie’s injuries were rather worse than in canon - bad enough to prevent her being offered a post at Holby. Meanwhile, things carry on regardless at the hospital, and certain events are inevitable - fixed points in Space and Time (whoops - wrong fandom). If Bernie isn’t there to deal with them - well, _somebody’s_ got to.

When Jason got home from work, Serena quizzed him as sensitively as she knew how on his friendship with Bernie. The other woman had evidently found him to be trustworthy and dependable, and she was proud of him for that.

“I wanted to thank you for giving me Bernie’s diary, Jason. It’s helped me understand a lot of things that I’d got really, really wrong about her, and I’m very sorry that I said everything I did. Does she know - I mean, did she say it would be all right for me to read it?”

He didn’t quite meet her eye. “She didn’t say you couldn’t,” he prevaricated. “And she said you knew all about it, so I thought it would be all right. Do you think she’ll be cross with me?”

“Jason my love, I think she’ll be too busy being cross with me that it won’t occur to her to be cross with anyone else. No, she won’t be cross with you. I’m very glad you showed it to me, I really am. Did you know before you typed it up that she was in the Army, that she’d been injured?”

“Only because I asked her why she was always leaning on things, and why she didn’t use her left hand. I thought she might be paralysed on that side, and I wondered how it happened. I asked her, and she told me about the bomb.”

Marvellous. Her nephew, the hospital porter, was a better diagnostician than she was.

“I was very impressed with your work - it’s beautifully done, all very smartly formatted. It must have taken you a very long time.”

“It did, but I didn’t mind. I learned a lot - I kept having to stop to look things up and I know ever such a lot about Afghanistan and the Army now. And it helped Bernie. Her handwriting isn’t very good - doctors never have good handwriting, I’ve noticed - and she wanted her therapist to be able to read her account properly. I was glad to help her, too, because she stood up to Robbie when he was horrible to me.”

Serena smiled at him. “I think you’re both very lucky to have such a good friend in each other. I just hope that she can forgive me for being so stupid and cruel, and that I can be friends with her again.”

With one of those startling insights that he sometimes displayed, Jason said, “You weren't cruel, Auntie Serena. You didn’t mean to hurt her, you just wanted to protect me like you couldn’t protect Elinor - I know that, and I expect she’ll understand it too. She’s very clever and wise. You were a _bit_ stupid though.”

***

She’d thought long and hard about what to say to Bernie the next time she saw her. She had delayed going to the allotments while she worked out in her head what she needed to tell her, and how to express it in a way that was more about how she wanted to mend their fences than making it about herself: she knew that she had already been self-centred to to the point of narcissism, and was determined that she was really going to change. When she looked back on her behaviour with Bernie over the last few months, she was reminded first of her daughter’s selfish moodiness, and secondly of her own mother’s judgemental snobbery. She could see Elinor’s comically immature outrage for the teenage selfishness it was, and despite years of conditioning to her mother’s criticism, knowing what she she now knew about Marjorie and Jason, she could see that much of it was based in frustration and guilt, and feelings of having been wronged by the universe. 

She thought back to those conversations where Bernie had given away little hints about what she had been through. Bernie, not wanting to talk about Afghanistan, had spoken of the Middle East: Serena had heard “rich bitch from Dubai.” Bernie had spoken of an affair that had ended her marriage: Serena had seen Edward, and in Bernie’s smoking, she had seen Elinor’s reckless and rebellious behaviour. Bernie had given her the very barest of bones on which to hang a story, and she had constructed a narrative of selfishness, neglect and cruelty. With stark clarity, she realised that she had created Bernie in the image of her own dysfunctional family. She had been wrong in every case, and she had ignored all the signs that pointed towards what she now believed to Bernie’s honesty and honourable nature. As a doctor, she should have recognised the signs of injury, and as a friend, the signs of pain and emotional distress. Bernie had been so stoical, making no mention of the things that were behind her and which she couldn’t change, or of the pain that she was in. Well, she had a better idea of how things were now. She couldn’t change the past, either, but she could put it behind her if Bernie allowed her to, and she would be a better friend.

She arrived at Lovers Lane and cautiously looked before she leaped - well, clambered - over the stile. The door of the shed was propped open, and she could hear movement from inside. Good. She would have her chance to put her case to Bernie.

But when she knocked tentatively on the side of the shed, it wasn’t Bernie who emerged, but a young woman in jeans and a polo shirt, a box in her arms. With mounting dismay, Serena recognised Bernie’s books and the lantern that had hung above the desk.

“I was looking for Bernie,” she began.

“Not here,” came the terse reply.

“Do you know when she’ll be here next?” she queried hopefully, though she was afraid she already knew the answer.

The woman shifted the box to her hip and pushed her hair out of her eyes. “She’s not coming back. I’ll tell her you asked.”

“Not coming - sorry, who are you?”

“Jo Carrington, from Dig For Victory. Bernie’s moved on, says she got what she needed from this place. Actually, she said she got more than she bargained for. Any idea what that’s about?”

She might only have been a slip of a thing, but Jo was made of steel, Serena thought.

Serena ignored the question. “Is she all right? I know she was in a lot of pain, and I’m worried about her. I’m a doctor - I wanted to ask her -”

“So you _are_ Serena, then. Yes?”

Christ, she was fearsome.

“Yes, that’s me. Serena Campbell - pleased to meet you.” She held out her hand, and Jo crushed it in a firmer handshake than she could remember ever suffering before. “Goodness, steady on - I need that hand for surgery!” she joked, but Jo wasn’t laughing.

Pulling an envelope from her back pocket, Jo handed it to Serena. ”Bernie asked me to give you this. Perhaps you can be a bit more friendly to the next poor sod we give this plot to.” She shut the shed door firmly behind her, Serena catching a glimpse of the bare walls within. The basket of blankets was gone, the little radio - all those modest little touches that had made it feel so like Bernie’s place. Affording Serena one last scornful glance, Jo strode off, the box of Bernie’s things still tight against her hip as she hopped over the stile.

Shocked into silence, Serena watched her go, and stood shaking. Bernie had gone.

Once she was sure that Jo had gone, she sank onto the bench where she had shared so many friendly coffee breaks with Bernie. She turned the envelope over and over in her hands, scared to open it.

_Dear Serena,_

_Jason texted me to tell me that he gave you my write-up to read. I wish he hadn’t, but please don’t give him a hard time - I know he meant well. At least I hope you know now that I really wasn’t trying to introduce him to drugs._

_The document I wrote was for my therapist’s reference, as I think you will have realised. I would ask that you respect the confidentiality of this arrangement, particularly regarding the matter of how I came by the offending substance. My friend may not operate strictly within the law, but I can attest to his intentions, and to the fact that he only supplies to clients with a genuine therapeutic need._

_You will know, too, if you read to the end, that I have greatly enjoyed my time at the allotment, not least because of your friendship, and that of Jason, Tanni and Celia. I’m sorry that I wasn’t able to be the friend you needed. You have been so good for me, and I thank you for that._

_Kind regards,_

_Bernie Wolfe_

Resisting the urge to screw the letter up, Serena let her hand fall to her lap. Her eyes were prickling, and a cold, heavy stone seemed to have settled in the pit of her stomach. She had come here to put things right, but how could she do that now? Bernie was gone, Jo had made it clear that the most she would pass on was the fact that she had been there asking for Bernie, and she had no idea where she lived, other than in a flat in St Ursulas. There were dozens - probably hundreds of flats down there, and although she wildly thought about combing the streets, knocking on doors, she knew it would be a non-starter. She had to face it: her words, her behaviour, her temper, had chased Bernie away from the place that she had loved and treated as a safe haven. She had done this, and she couldn’t undo it.

***

As when she had previously fallen out with Bernie, Serena threw herself into her work, but this time she tried to be more constructive about using this distraction. Now that she knew who Bernie was, she tried to imagine seeing AAU through her eyes. Would it impress her? Would it meet her exacting standards? She re-evaluated the procedures she had taken from Bernie’s work previously, checking and double checking them to see whether they were in fact running as she had intended, and whether, if by some miracle Bernie were to step onto the ward, she would recognise them as having been inspired by her own observations. In this way, Serena tightened up a number of areas that she now saw had become flabby, complacent, and she did away with some bureaucracy that had always seemed vital, but which she now saw was slowing things down and adding no value.

At the same time, she made it known to admin that she would be unavailable for shifts on Wednesday afternoons from four o’clock onwards, as she had a regular commitment at that time that required her to be away from hospital premises. Only Raf knew that Serena was going to cognitive behaviour therapy sessions, having self-referred to a psychology service that specialised in the treatment. Although it was too late to undo the damage her temper had done to her friendship with Bernie, the whole sorry episode had shaken her so badly that she knew it was time to address it. Like Bernie before her, she hated having to examine her thoughts and impulses, but it was beginning to help her keep on a more even keel, and she was glad of it.

She was still making it a priority to get down to the allotment, where there was so much to be done, and she was glad of the hard physical work that it required of her. She was spending most of her leisure hours there, keeping on top of weeding, watering the vegetables, admiring the plants that were starting to look like things she might possibly want to eat in the fullness of time. How satisfying it was to go home at the end of a session down there and step under the shower, washing off the dirt and stretching until her aching back clicked. But going there was a form of punishment, too. The empty shed was a daily accusation: Jo had evidently not found anyone ready to take on the plot since Bernie had left, and Serena had taken to spending a little bit of time on plot thirteen each time she worked on her own allotment: she couldn’t bear to see Bernie’s hard work go to waste, to see weeds overtaking the neat rows of beans, or for the grass to grow long around the little bench. She found herself developing the ritual of finishing each session with a brief spell sitting there, her hand resting on the empty seat next to her where Bernie had always sat.

With her renewed focus at work, and the physical exertions she was making keeping two allotments up to scratch, even with help from Tanni and the others, she started to notice a change in herself. Her clothes felt looser on her body, and although she was nearly always tired, it was a healthy physical exhaustion rather than the brain fog she had felt so often before. She hadn’t realised until Jason pointed it out, but the extra time spent at Lovers Lane meant that she was drinking a lot less, too, and she thought that probably had something to do with her improved mental state. And of course, the CBT was making a difference. She was less snappish at work and at home, and her staff began to tread a little less carefully around her, which was a relief to many of them. Even poor mishap-prone Jasmine Burrows, more relaxed around the boss whom she admired and feared in equal measure, was making fewer mistakes. Raf was pleased to see Jasmine looking less like a whipped puppy, and said as much to Serena one evening as they strolled around the allotments, admiring each other's work.

“Whatever you’re doing in those sessions is doing you a world of good, Serena. You seem much more at peace with the world since long before your mother died. Do you feel as good as you look?”

“Careful, Mr Di Lucca, this sounds dangerously like flirting, and I hear that your hubby has a jealous streak.” She nudged him playfully in the ribs. At his request, she was still discrete about his relationship with Fletch at work: they both insisted that they didn’t mind people knowing, but that it made life simpler if they could keep work and home life separate. Serena wasn’t entirely convinced, and was all for having a splendid coming out party at Albie’s, but respected their request. It didn’t stop her teasing her old friend outside work, though.

“I do feel good, though,” she confided in him. “I hate to say it, but a spell of drinking less has been good for me - and all this lovely fresh air! What a tonic - why don’t we prescribe this?” A shadow fell over her face as she recalled that Bernie had more or less been prescribed exactly this. It had been weeks now since she had seen her, and it seemed unlikely that their paths would cross again. She was profoundly sorry about the way they had parted, and felt that she would give anything just to see her again and to make her peace with her. She knew that she had no-one to blame but herself, and when she remembered their rocky history, she marvelled that Bernie had lasted as long as she had done. What a harridan she had been! She shook off her gloomy thoughts and turned to Raf.

“You know, Hanssen’s made me an offer I don’t think I can refuse.”

Raf’s expressive eyebrows shot up. “Oh yes? Blimey, I didn't think he had it in him, the sly old dog!”

She walloped him in the arm, playfully scowling at him. “Not that sort of offer, you rogue. I can’t imagine it, somehow, can you? No, it’s rather a unique opportunity, actually. He’s been impressed with the changes we’ve been making in AAU, particularly around our revised trauma protocols. He called me to his office this morning, and I was hoping it was going to be an offer of funding for the trauma bay I’ve been nagging him about for years, but it’s something else - though not unrelated.”

“Come on, spit it out - you’re just stringing it out for effect now!”

“He’s invited me to apply for a secondment - well, not just to apply - he’s offering it to me on a plate, really. There’s a hospital in the Ukraine that’s setting up a new trauma unit, and they want someone to go and help design their processes and procedures. Apparently the work we’ve been doing here, combined with my administrative background, makes me the ideal candidate.”

He whistled. “That’s quite an offer. How long would you be gone for?”

“Depends how well it goes, I suppose. It could be weeks, could be months. I think I’d need to be confident that it would be weeks if I were to do it - I couldn’t leave Jason for long.”

“How does he feel about it - have you told him yet?”

“Mmm. I told Hansen I wouldn’t even consider it if Jason couldn’t cope with the idea, but he seemed quite open to it when I told him earlier. I called his old carer, Alan - he’d be willing to provide either temporary accommodation, or to visit Jason at home, depending on how independent Jason felt he wanted to be. Jason seemed quite taken with the idea, to tell the truth - I could practically hear the cogs turning in that great big brain of his.”

“And Elinor?”

Serena scoffed. “She won’t even notice I’ve gone. Unless she needs money, or picking up from somewhere, or bailing out of some scrape or other. I’ll give her your number for emergencies, shall I?” She asked sweetly.

“Very funny. It sounds as though you’ve pretty well made up your mind to me - are you going to go for it?”

“Do you know Raf, I think I am. The only thing holding me back is this place. I’ll miss it - and I’ll miss picking our first beans, digging up the first spuds… And its stupid of me, I know, but I’ve been clinging to the hope that Bernie might come back one of these days. I’d want to be here if she did.” She gazed back wistfully at the colourful little shed.

Not looking at her, Raf said carefully, “You’re awfully invested in Bernie, aren’t you? I mean, for someone you just met down here and saw from time to time, you care an awful lot about what she thinks of you.”

“It’s silly, isn’t it? But I can’t bear to know that she’s out there somewhere thinking badly of me because of the way I was then. I wish I could meet her again, start again somehow. I think we could have been such good friends to each other.” A sudden thought struck her. “Oh! Did you know, by the way, what her surname is?”

“Bernie? No. I didn't really talk to her very much. Why?”

“It’s Wolfe. As in Bernie Wolfe. As in Berenice G. Wolfe. I didn’t realise who she was until after she’d left, but I actually owe her this secondment - once I knew who she was, it made me look afresh at things on AAU - you know, ‘What Would Bernie Do?’ - and that’s what’s got me the Kiev gig.”

His jaw had dropped. “That was Berenice Wolfe? you knew Berenice Wolfe and didn't tell me? Oh - Serena! I could kill you and bury you in your own rhubarb patch. I’d love the chance to work with her!”

“Well, I'm sorry - I think I’ve well and truly blown that for you. And I told you - I had no idea it was her until later. Jason knew, but didn’t understand the full significance, I don’t think. Anyway, she’s not working at the moment - at least, she wasn't a few weeks ago. God knows what she’s up to now. I hope she’s doing okay, wherever she is.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here endeth the section known as the Chapters of Angst. We’re racing towards the conclusion now - and just remember that everything in the garden grows back strongly after hard pruning...


	15. Reap What You Sow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Serena’s time in Kiev has been a success - and fun, too. A new friend asks her a question she’s heard before, and this time, she knows the answer. 
> 
> It’s time for her to go home and reap what she’s sown.

Kiev had been a blast. Serena had been in her element, planning and directing, swapping ideas with new colleagues, emailing and Skyping old ones both in Holby and at Harvard to bounce ideas off, and to enthuse about the work she was doing. She had left AAU in Raf’s hands, confident that he would take good care of it, and excited for him as he took on his own ward for the very first time, even if it was only a temporary appointment. She had promised not to dog him with phone calls and emails checking up on him, and she was as good as her word.

She had been tickled to find that Kiev was a city still in recovery after the Eurovision Song Contest that had been hosted there only two or three months earlier. As unfriendly a place as it was to be gay, the rainbow flag-wavers of Europe had made the city their own, and there were still plenty of venues capitalising on Kiev’s long Eurovision hangover. One of her new colleagues, a very dapper young ED consultant at the hospital, had a couple of favourite bars - _and a couple of favourites at each of them_ , Serena had said with a wink - and they had made something of a habit of visiting them after work. Serena had always had gay male friends, and she was enjoying Raf and Fletch’s romance tremendously, and had started to think of herself as something of a mother figure for all these lovely boys.

Althugh Serena wasn’t to know it, the gay scene in Kiev was much smaller than even Holby’s, with less distinction between gay or lesbian venues, and the city’s LGBT community flocked to the safe spots in fairly equal measure. These women and girls were nothing like the image of humourless mannish lesbians that still lingered at the less enlightened edges of Serena’s imagination. Many of the women were drop dead gorgeous, she thought, and she caught herself thinking “I’d never have known she was gay” more than once, before chastising herself for thinking in stereotypes. The women ranged from leggy blondes with high Slavic cheekbones to boyish young things with interesting hair and piercings, to dumpy middle aged women who seemed quite out of place among the clubbing youngsters, to a positively ancient woman with her hair dyed a shocking pink, who pinched Serena’s cheek every time she saw her - and sometimes her _other_ cheek, too - and who laughed like a drain with all the pretty young men, who all fawned on her. Of course, meeting Claire and Louise at the allotments had broadened her horizons somewhat, too - and she hadn’t known Bernie was gay, either. She pushed that thought away whenever it occurred to her.

But Bernie dogged her thoughts even in far Kiev, and the mantra she had adopted in AAU stuck here, as well, as she surveyed ward plans, treatment protocols, shift patterns, and thought time and time again, _What Would Bernie Do?_ She mocked herself - of course she didn’t really know what Bernie would do - they hadn’t worked together, more’s the pity, and the closest she had come to even discussing medicine with her was by reading her accounts of battlefield surgery. But the rhetorical question always seemed to help her clarify her thoughts, somehow.

Raf’s rhetorical question had stuck with her, too. Why did she care so very much what Bernie thought about her? She was desperately sorry to have hurt her, and she knew that Bernie had been right to absent herself from Serena’s frankly toxic brand of friendship, as it had been, but now that she had found this healthier frame of mind and body, this happier place in her life, why could she still not shake the memory of the other woman? And now someone else was asking her the same question.

“You talk about the Wolfe woman a lot, you know,” Andriy said to her as they leaned up against the bar in _Malen’kyy Golub_ , their current favourite.

“Do I? Well, she’s been very influential in our field - her work’s informed a lot of what we’re doing here.” Serena was scanning the bar to see who was in that night.

“Yes, but you don’t talk about her like you talk about other doctors, you know - Smith and Jones say this, Eckmann and Weismann say that, Filipova and Ohridskiy aver the other… You say things like, _oh, I wonder what Bernie would say about that?_ Or, _I think Bernie would prefer to approach it like this_ \- you talk about her like you know her.”

“Well,” Serena said, her tongue loosened by the unspeakably bad cocktail he had thrust into her hand, “I did know her - a bit, just for a while.”

“Oh, oh, oh! There’s a story here, isn’t there? I can smell it! Tell me all about it.” He leaned forward, chin on his fist and an eyebrow quirked to an improbable degree, and in that moment, he reminded her so strongly of Dominic Copeland that she felt a great surge of affection for him rush over her.

“Silly. There’s no story. I knew her, she left. That’s it.” She hoped she sounded as bright and jolly and dismissive as she always tried to be when they were out on the razzle, but Andriy’s face fell.

“Oh, Serena, I have made you sad. I think the Big Bad Wolfe was special, yes? What happened? Was she the one that got away?”

And without knowing she was going to say it, and without knowing that she had even felt it before, she murmured, “Very much the one.”

She looked up at him in shock, and the music seemed to fall silent, the lights dim around her, as she realised the truth of what she had just said. “Andriy, I - love her.”

The next morning, she requested a brief interview with the hospital’s director, and by lunchtime, she was on a plane home.

***

She didn’t even go home when the plane landed at Holby International. She needed to talk to Raf, for who else would understand? She remembered her hasty statement when they spoke about late-life revelations - “It’s not me!” - but of course, it was her. That was why she had been so exercised by this aspect of Bernie’s story, it must be. In Bernie’s story of uncovering her true self, of recognising her own desires and owning them, Serena had read her own story, too - she just hadn’t understood it then. On the flight, she had tried to sleep, to block out the thoughts that were chasing round and round, but every time she closed her eyes, she saw that bright gold mane of hair, those deep brown eyes, the shy smile she had delighted in provoking, and she could hardly bear it.

“You stupid, stupid idiot!” She berated herself. “You had literally everything you wanted in the palm of your hand, and you threw it away. _Stupid!_ Sorry - not you,” she quickly placated the man sitting next to her, who was now glaring at her. “Sorry, bit nervous - I’ve made a terrible mess of things, but I’m going to put them right. I don’t know how, but I’ve got to, you see, so - well, I’ll find a way.” She nodded decisively, then turned to face forward and shut her eyes tightly, wishing the ground would swallow her up. Then she remembered that she was on an aeroplane thirty thousand feet above Europe and revoked the wish, laughing aloud with a hiccup. “I’m sorry,” she said again, without opening her eyes. “And I haven’t even had a drop to drink!”

As she paid the taxi driver outside the hospital and pulled her case towards the ambulance bay, she heard her name.

“Auntie Serena!” How odd Jason sounded: a bit out of breath, almost panicky. Well, she hadn’t had time to tell him she was coming - she expected it was a bit of a shock.

“Jason, darling - hello! Have you missed me as much as I’ve missed you?”

“I don’t know,” he said, “Because I don’t know how much you’ve missed me, so I can’t compare. I’ve missed you a lot though. Why are you home so soon?”

“Oof! It doesn't _sound_ as though you missed me - you don’t sound very glad to see me at all! I finished what I needed to do, and I thought I’d surprise you and come home early. I’m sorry, I should know by now that you don’t really like surprises.”

“That’s all right - at least it’s a nice surprise,” he beamed. “I think you should go home now, though.”

She narrowed her eyes suspiciously. “Why? What’s happened? What’s Raf done to my unit?” She pushed her suitcase at him. “Here - put this somewhere safe.” She stalked off towards AAU at a rattling pace. “Raf!” she roared. “Why is Jason trying to get rid of me!”

She barged through the double doors like a gunfighter into a saloon bar, and saw Raf deep in conversation with a tall woman in scrubs, her back to Serena. As Raf’s eyes widened in shock, the woman turned round and Serena stared open mouthed.

“Bernie!”

***

If she hadn’t been so shocked, she would have laughed at the sight of Bernie and Raf falling over each other to get out of her line of fire. She knew that the old Serena would have been gearing up for an absolute belter of a row by this point, but she lifted her hands in a calming gesture. “Don’t worry, the old Serena can’t come to the phone right now - she’s in Kiev.” She giggled. “Did I get it right? Oh, look at your face, Raf! Do you think perhaps we could adjourn to my office? Your office, I mean?”

Looking at her sheepishly, Raf mumbled, “It's our office, actually,” and Serena smiled fondly at him. “That’s very sweet Raf, but it’s still your office - I haven't told Hanssen I’m back yet. It’s your office until he says otherwise.”

“No - I mean, it’s _our_ office - mine and Bernie’s.”

After a moment of silence, Serena shook her head as though she were shooing flies away. “Whatever. Let’s go to the office - any office, and you can tell me what’s going on.”

Bernie looked at Serena warily. “Shall I…” Serena reached out a hand to her. “Please, Bernie. You’d better come too - I’ve got a feeling this will take a bit of untangling.”

Wondering how she was managing to stay so outwardly calm, Serena led the way to what had been her office and closed the door behind them. She made a point of sitting in the chair that she kept in there for visitors, and waited for Raf to sit down in her own old chair. Bernie, though she had a desk and chair of her own opposite Raf’s, leaned on the edge of the desk in an achingly familiar pose.

“Raf - would you like to start? How have things been?” She smiled encouragingly at him, hoping he would make it quick and put her out of her misery soon.

“Fine - good! More than good!” He was visibly sweating. “Everything's just… good!”

“I see. Good.” She rolled her eyes at him. “Take a deep breath and start again.”

He did just that, exhaling with a great huff, and shaking his arms and hands out as though he were warming up for five rounds with Rocky Balboa - or at least Rocky Griffin.

“It _has_ been good, actually. Everyone’s pulled together, but I had to spend a bit of time up on Keller - Sacha had a bit of a bad time, and - well, I just helped out. Hanssen asked Ric to stand in for me, but he had some family stuff, so we looked for a locum. And - well -” he gestured towards Bernie, who gave a tiny jazz hands gesture.

“Surprise,” she said, in a small voice shot through with uncertainty.

“It’s certainly that,” said Serena. “It’s a very welcome surprise - though I don’t suppose you can say the same thing about me turning up out of the blue like this. Don’t tell me, you were going to be gone by the time I got back?”

“Something like that. Jason told me there might be some work going here if I wanted to try and get my hand back in - I’ve mostly been supervising, but I’ve done a couple of smaller ops, all good so far.” She flexed her left hand a couple of times and nodded approvingly.

“ _Jason_ told you? How?”

Bernie stared at her uncomprehendingly. “He phoned me. We’ve been texting ever since I moved to the Dunnocks Field allotments and comparing notes about PH levels.”

“Jason had your phone number?” Serena said faintly. “All that time and Jason… and you’re just at another allotment site? You haven't given up gardening because of me?”

“No - who told you that? I just wanted to give you space - something about me seemed to be bringing up a lot of issues for you and I thought it would be better if I just - removed the irritation. Jo offered me one of the other Dig For Victory plots when I told her I was going to take a break from Lovers Lane. Why - were you trying to get in touch with me?”

Serena laughed, a sob that threatened to go either way.

“You absolute _idiot_ , Bernie! I’ve been beside myself with worry! I thought - well, I knew you couldn’t bear to be around me any more - I didn’t blame you - but I thought you’d given up gardening, writing, all of it! I wanted to tell you how sorry I was, but I didn’t know how to find you. And all this time, all I had to do was ask Jason? Why didn’t he tell me?”

Bernie eyed her askance. “Well, you know he doesn’t tend to volunteer information unless you ask him directly. I thought you just didn’t want to keep in touch, and I got that - I didn't want to make things any harder for you. But I did tell you I'd texted him, didn’t I - didn’t you get my note?”

Serena brought a clenched fist to her forehead. “Oh, god. You’re not the idiot. I am. I. Am. Such. A. Fucking. Idiot.” Each word was punctuated by the soft thud of her knuckles against her skull. Bernie’s hands were knotted together, and it looked as though she were fighting not to reach out and pull Serena’s hands away from her head.

Raf had been looking from one woman to the other, back and forth, and his eyes widened in sudden comprehension. He slowly stood and backed noiselessly out of the door, only the soft click of the latch rousing Serena from her self-deprecating state. Bernie started to the door after him.

“Has he just locked us in? Oh, for goodness sake - I’ll call security.” She stepped back to her desk and picked up the phone, but Serena put her hand over Bernie’s and replaced the receiver.

“No - don’t. He’s right - we need to talk, don’t we? There’s so much that I got wrong, so much that I assumed - isn’t it time we just talked to each other? I know it’s time I listened.”

Bernie looked at her kindly. “It’s all right, Serena, truly. You’ve read my journal - I don’t think there’s anything more to tell you - I really did pour everything out in those notebooks, so if you read it all the way through, you have listened to me. I know I said I wished Jason hadn’t given it to you, but I’m glad he did - I’m glad you know the truth now, all of it.”

“Instead of just the bits I chose to see, you mean? Why didn't you tell me, Bernie? Why didn’t you tell me who you were when I told you I worked here, in AAU? You must have know you’re Someone in our circles? And when I got things so wrong - well, look, I know I didn’t give you much of a chance, but couldn't you have let me know about Afghanistan sooner? It would have made such a difference!”

Bernie was a little shame-faced, but she tried her best to explain.

“It was nice just being Bernie for a change - not Major Wolfe, not Berenice G. Wolfe - not even a doctor. I wasn’t sure I was ever going to be able to practice medicine again, or at least operate, and it took the pressure off, just being _me_ somewhere. Therapy, counselling - I so rarely got to leave all that stuff behind, but at the allotment, and with you, I could just see what it might be like to be Bernie for a while. Can you understand that?”

“I think I can, yes. But I'm glad I know now. Jason asked me why I was always so cross with you, and I told him it was because I thought you were wasting your potential - because I could see it, you know - just how strong and capable and competent and - _marvellous_ \- you could be if you let yourself. I just didn’t know you already had.”

Bernie looked away, embarrassed. “I don’t know about marvellous,” she demurred.

“Oh, but you are! Just look at what you’ve achieved, and what you’ve survived! Not just the IED, but the way things have been with Marcus and the children - but it doesn’t seem to have left you bitter or suspicious of people - you just kept forgiving me for all the horrible things I said to you. Why? How could you forgive me so easily?”

Bernie sighed and met her eyes with a level gaze.

“Well, it hasn’t always been easy, I’ll admit. That first time we met, and you were so outraged by my getting the allotment without having to wait, I was really baffled - I just didn’t know the waiting list was so long, and your reaction was pretty… intense,” her smile was almost a wink, and Serena knew that this first offence had not been held against her, “and I know I was a bit frosty with you after that. I’ve always tried to be the embodiment of fair play - ha! Guess who was head girl at school? - so my pride was pretty dented when you thought I’d cheated. “

Serena flushed in shame, remembering how harsh she had been.

“But when you came to apologise with that lovely rosemary plant, the way you talked about Jason really made me think about what made you tick. You showed so much care for him, and so much frustration with the world, the way it treated him, well - that conversation coloured everything for after that, the way you want to protect people - including yourself. I hope you know now that I wasn’t really like your ex husband - what I had with Alex wasn’t ‘a bit of fun,’ or a way of getting one over on Marcus - even at its height, it made me feel horrible about myself and the situation - but I _completely_ understood that your reaction came from your experience of divorce, not mine. And if I found someone smoking dope around my kids, I’d probably have reacted just the way you did - we’re all mama bears with our kids, aren’t we? I’m just sorry I put you in that position - and Jason, too.”

Serena was incredulous. “You're apologising - to me? Bernie, you’re some sort of saint! You’ve got nothing to apologise for - whereas I… I don’t know where to start. I’m so sorry for all those awful things I said to you, Bernie. Somehow I made everything you told me all about me - when you said you’d been living in the Middle East, I thought you were an expat, the kind of terrible snob that my mother was. When you said you’d had an affair, I could only think about Edward, and how lightly he took it all, and I know now it was nothing like that for you. And when I found you smoking that spliff, I - well, my daughter, Elinor - she’s only twenty, but she’s made some absolutely terrible choices in her time, and she’s been in and out of rehab more times than I’ve had hot dinners - and, well, so it goes on. You told me about you, all I could hear was about me.”

Serena was nervous, but she was determined to explain everything to Bernie this time. “When I think how much our friendship meant to you - to _both_ of us - and I destroyed all that by jumping to conclusions. I only realised when I was away exactly what it really meant to me - what _you_ mean to me - and then suddenly I understood what you’d written about feeling as though you could have a future worth writing about - and I ruined everything. I was rubbish.”

“You’re not rubbish, Serena. I think you’re actually pretty bloody fantastic, and so do your staff. They adore you, you know. They’re a good bunch.”

Serena tutted, brushing off the compliment. “Look - Bernie. It’s so good to see you again - and look at you, back in theatre! I’m so glad. I think - I think you should stay on here. I’m going to ask Hanssen for a transfer. We've needed a trauma unit here for ever, and there just isn’t money for both, so if the Board agrees, I’ll gladly make way for you. It’s what you deserve - if it’s what you want?”

“What I want? I know what I want, Serena, and it's not your ward. My only regret about you reading my journal was that last page - it’s all true, I care about you so very much, but it’s not how I would have chosen to tell you how I felt. In fact, I don’t think I ever would have done. I knew you were straight, I knew you’d been hurt, and I wouldn’t ever have wanted to put you in this awkward position. I’m so sorry, Serena.”

Serena shook her head, once, impatiently. They had been leaning side by side against a low filing cabinet, and now she turned to Bernie.

“Look, I haven’t been quite honest with you. Not completely. When I was in Kiev, there - there was only one thing I could think of. That was you, Bernie.”

Bernie felt hope blossom in her heart, but still she looked at Serena sceptically. “Well, I hope something’s changed, then?”

“Me - me, I’ve changed. Ask Raf. I’ve been to therapy - can you believe it? - I’ve been to CBT for anger management, and it’s helped me so, _so_ much. I don’t want that bitter, angry feeling ever again.” She stepped closer to Bernie.

“So where does that leave -”

Serena interrupted her. “What’s he doing?” She was peering over Bernie’s shoulder, through the window onto the corridor, where Raf’s face was peeking from between the blinds.

“I think he’s playing Cupid,” Bernie said, as casually as she could.

“And how’s that - ah, how’s that working for him?” Serena tried desperately to sound just as careless.

“Not very well, given that you’re leaving again.” Bernie looked at Serena so directly, her gaze was a dare.

“Well,” said Serena, ducking her head and smiling up at Bernie, “I won’t, then - if you give me a reason to stay?”

There was a beat as the invitation hung in the air between them, and Bernie surged forward. “Will this do?” Serena met her halfway, and they kissed, and kissed, and kissed. Serena flung out a hand behind her to close the blinds, and as Raf’s voice piped up, something about a key, Bernie muttered, “Ignore him,” and her hands swept up Serena’s back, cupped the back of her neck as Serena’s fingers finally twined in Bernie’s glorious tangle of blonde hair.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Malen’kyy Golub_ is Ukrainian for “little pigeon.” In Russian, which is closely related to Ukrainian, pigeon can be used to mean gay or queer (long boring linguistic story), so I’ve borrowed it for Kiev. I’m sure someone will let me know if this is linguistically, culturally or ethically wrong!
> 
> I’ve no idea what the gay scene in Kiev is like, but I love the idea of a city having a Eurovision hangover (I certainly have one every year), and I’m sure ESC made the city a bit gayer for a while.
> 
> There’s only one chapter left to go now - soon it will be time to bring in the harvest :-)


	16. Harvest Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As everything comes to fruition at Lovers Lane, the allotmenteers celebrate with a barbecue - and a spectacular finale. Robbie discovers what it takes to achieve a maximum Twat Factor score, and Jason is on hand to help with health and safety.
> 
> However, Bernie’s contract on AAU is about to expire - unless Hanssen can find a way to keep her at Holby.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Crack open a cold one and join us at Lovers Lane one last time :-)

August was a joyful time on the allotment. The allotmenteers had been feasting on their own produce over the last few weeks, and now it was growing faster than they could use it. Hardly an hour went past without one plot holder offering another a courgette, often to the accompaniment of ribald laughter. Tanni and Serena had been making pot after pot of jam and chutney, and their freezers were full of blanched beans and all sorts of other goodies.

Now, though, they were allowing themselves to rest on their laurels for a while. Although it was early in the year for a proper harvest festival, the more sociable allotmenteers had got together on a warm Saturday afternoon for a barbecue, which had degenerated into a party at Serena and Tanni’s plot. Bob had shared a quick drink with them and headed home, claiming that he was “too old for this nonsense,” but he had left with a smile on his face. Louise and Claire, Raf and Fletch and their four Fletchlings were all out in force, Mikey swinging from the trees in the community orchard, and Fletch’s cries alternating between “Mikey, get down from there!” And “Theo - don’t eat that!” Jason and Celia were sitting on Bernie’s bench - he had never really adapted to sitting on the ground - and Jo Carrington was swigging a beer, a scowl on her face as she studiously ignored Serena.

“She likes you really,” whispered Bernie.

“She bloody doesn’t! First nurse I’ve ever been scared of, I can tell you that for nothing.”

“Well, no, all right - she doesn’t like you as such. She’ll come round to you, though. After all, I did, didn’t I?” She leaned in to give Serena a lazy kiss.

“And what a miracle that was!” Serena acknowledged, cuddling in to her a little. “I don’t know how you found it in yourself to forgive me for all my awful assumptions - I was so prejudiced against you, but so drawn to you at the same time - I couldn’t work myself out. It wasn’t until I went to Kiev, got right out of the situation, that I realised why I'd been so conflicted. Someone asked me if you were the one that got away, and I just thought, bloody hell, that’s it, isn’t it?”

“So you came home.” Bernie smiled.

“So I came home. And there you were, running my ward - I thought I was hallucinating!”

“It barely needed running - it was running itself so nicely. I went in thinking, _I mustn’t try and change anything, it’s Serena’s ward_ , but when I got settled in, there was nothing that needed changing, nothing that I felt I could really improve on.”

“Ah, well - there’s a reason for that. I’d tried to implement some of your recommendations before, but after you left, and I realised who you were, I just re-evaluated everything, tried to see it through your eyes. I looked at all the things that weren’t quite working, and thought, _what would Bernie do?_ ”

Bernie’s laugh was a loud, joyful bark. “Ha! Can we get that printed on a bumper sticker? Did you by any chance say it out loud in the presence of your team, I wonder? Because that would explain why I kept hearing people muttering about the _Wolfe Protocol_. It was rather a boost to my ego, I have to admit.”

“I expect it was. Here’s another one for you - when Hanssen offered me the Kiev secondment, he said that when the Ukrainians visited, they had asked for me because they’d been impressed by the way AAU was running, and I quote, ‘like a military operation.’ You might never get this girl in the military, but it seems you can at least put a bit of the military in the girl.”

Bernie tried, she really did, but it was too much, and she hooted with laughter. “Now there’s an offer I can’t refuse. I’ll be putting a bit of the military in the girl later, all right!”

It took Serena a moment, but once it sank in, she flushed, but smiled contentedly. “Yes, well, I’ll be reporting for duty tonight, Major.”

“And such an eager recruit you are, too,” Bernie teased. “Though I have to say, I’d never have guessed you were a novice. I was so taken aback when you came into AAU that day and - well, I just hadn’t seen it coming, much as I'd wished for it. You'd really never been with a woman before? Never even dreamed about it?”

“No, honestly! It was as much of a surprise to me as it was to you, but once I’d realised, that was it - suddenly everything just made sense. As soon as Andriy asked me, I just thought, well, yes, obviously. And you know me - if I’m going to go for something, I bloody well go for it!”

“Mmm, you’re not kidding,” Bernie sighed happily. “Though I might ask for further proof of that later.”

They kissed again, their laughter fading away as the moment shifted to something quieter, deeper.

Robbie, who had most definitely not been invited to the party, chose this moment to march past, glaring at them. “For god’s sake, there are children here! Is everyone on this flaming allotment gay?”

Bernie looked round innocently, too happy to really mind the interruption, and took a quick head count. “Yes - yes, I think so,” she said helpfully. “Oh - no, wait - Jason and Celia are here - over there, with Tanni. They’ll be happy to protect you.” She gestured at the bench, and Jason waved happily at them.

Robbie swore and stomped on to his own allotment, yet another gadget under his arm. He had been fighting a losing battle all summer with the weeds he had inadvertently helped along the way earlier in the year, and it had become an all-consuming vendetta. He vanished behind his shed, and a moment later they heard a soft hiss, then a dull roar, and he stepped back around the shed with a pack on his back that made him look like a ghostbuster, and a long steel wand connected to it with a rubber hose.

“Oh, no, he’s not going to…” breathed Bernie. “Oh, this is bad. This is a very, very bad idea.” The others followed her gaze and watched in disbelief as Robbie aimed his flamethrower at the weeds covering his allotment. A crazed look on his face, he drew the wand round in an arc, stepping into the fire he was setting. It hadn’t occurred to him to work backwards, as though painting a floor, and before long, he started hopping from one foot to the other as the heat beneath became too intense to stand still. Too late, he realised his mistake: it was late August, it had been a warm, sunny summer, and the weeds were tinder dry. The fire was only very low level, but it surrounded him as he hopped about, and he watched in horror as it raced towards his shed, fanned by the light evening breeze.

Bernie realised what was about to happen at the same moment Robbie did, and she cried “Everyone get down!” just as he flung the backpack of fuel out of the range of the flames, and staring in horror at the shed, gave an anguished cry - “My rotavator!” The flames licked around the door of the shed for a moment, and it seemed as thought there was a moment of perfect stillness before the fire found Robbie’s jerrycans, stored in his shed against all regulations, and there was the most almighty explosion, and a cloud of black smoke rose into the air.

Robbie rose to his feet from where the blast had knocked him onto the path, then collapsed in a heap again. It was clear from his stream of expletives that he wasn’t badly injured, just furious, and Serena, who was nearest, gave him a quick glance up and down where he lay, and shook her head at the partygoers, mouthing “Just leave him.” Jason, though, seeing that Robbie’s trousers were still smouldering round the ankles from the burnt scrub, marched over, a gadget of his own in hand, and with a prim remark that it was “better to be safe than sorry,” upended the watering can over Robbie’s lower portions. “You’re welcome,” he said with a satisfied nod.

***

Even had Robbie not resigned from the allotment in his subsequent tantrum, he would have been expelled for keeping fuel on site. Tanni was delighted when she received a letter shortly afterwards, saying that plot eighteen at Lovers Lane had unexpectedly become available: would she care to take it on?

“Can you believe it? A perfect thirty! He actually achieved maximum Twat Factor. And the best thing is that the fire actually did the job,” she said gleefully as she and Serena poked around. “It will have seen off the worst of all those brambles nicely. It’s a shame about the shed - but why don’t we put a big one up between the two plots and share it? We can save a corner for Bernie, too.” For Bernie had thrown in her lot with Serena, freeing up plot thirteen for Jo’s latest lame duck ( _don’t call them that_ , Serena had hissed at Bernie, _she’ll think it’s my idea and she hates me enough already_ ).

Everyone who had been at the party had pulled together to clean up after the fire, and it really had cleared the ground beautifully. Robbie had been fine - a couple of sore little burns to his ankles, but Jason’s actions had genuinely prevented them from being any worse. Robbie had permitted Bernie to check him over with very bad grace, and Fletch had made sure he got home all right. “Don’t let the door hit your arse on the way in!” He had called cheerfully as Robbie slammed it behind him.

***

The riotous night had led to a few sore heads the next morning, and when Hanssen called Serena and Bernie to his office later in the day, Serena muttered that she hoped it wasn’t for a breath test. Bernie, her limp barely noticeable now, poked her in the ribs with a sharp elbow, and they struggled to suppress their giggles as they knocked and entered what Serena had described as the Ideal Hanssen Exhibition, so tidy was his office.

“Ah, Ms Campbell; Ms Wolfe. Thank you for being here. I wanted to talk about the future of AAU.”

They quickly sobered up: this sounded serious.

“I wanted to voice my appreciation of the efforts you have made to ensure the efficient running of the unit over the last few weeks. Ms Campbell, I understand it will have been something of a shock to find our esteemed colleague Ms Wolfe at the helm when you returned from Kiev -”

“You have no idea, Henrik.”

“And Ms Wolfe, you have been a very welcome and valued addition to the team for the duration of your contract, which as you know is due to expire at the end of this week.”

Serena whipped her head round to look at Bernie with dismay. Bernie shrugged, her palms spread helplessly - it was true, time was up - what could she do but look for work elsewhere now?

“I have, however, a proposal, if Ms Campbell is in agreement?”

“Well, let’s hear it, Henrik - I can’t agree if I don’t know what it is.”

“Indeed. Well, as Ms Campbell has no doubt told you, we have wished to improve our trauma facilities at Holby for quite some time now. The improvements Ms Campbell put into place prior to her secondment, and the further work that you and Mr Di Lucca carried out in her absence have convinced the Board of Governors of the benefits of a permanent trauma bay situated within the existing footprint of AAU. Ms Campbell - are you in agreement?”

She looked at him, beaming.

“I shall take that as a yes, shall I? Oh - and one more thing. I should like to suggest that as Ms Wolfe clearly has the greater experience in trauma management, and Ms Campbell, AAU remains your particular specialism, you should share responsibility for the new combined service as co-leads. What do you say?”

Bernie looked at Serena, who looked back at her happily. She turned back to Hanssen, her hands deep in her pockets.

“Well - we are equals, after all,” she said casually.

“Serena?”

Her response was nothing short of euphoric, and her voice seemed to come from the very soles of her feet.

“Halle-fucking-lujah!”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There we have it, folks - our growing season is over for the year. But it all comes round again in springtime, and I’m confident that Bernie and Serena - or Pride and Prejudice, as some of you recognised - will keep gardening together for years to come.
> 
> Thank you so much for reading, leaving kudos, commenting, coming to say hello on Tumblr and joining in the fun - I’ve been absolutely overwhelmed by the response to this story, and my day has been made every day by your kindness. I’d share an allotment with you guys any day.
> 
> Readers were so generous with their ideas about how to score MaxTwatFac that I can confirm: 
> 
> Robbie Medcalf will return in “Fifty Ways To Lose The Plot” (may contain fewer than fifty ways).


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